Hunters of the Enterprise
by Jasmine-N-Leaves
Summary: Flickering lights and cold spots appear on the Enterprise. When several of the crew are attacked, Jim, Spock and Leonard learn of the secret world of Hunting.
1. Flickering lights

A/N: So this is the start of my second story with my OC, Samanthea Winchester. For those of the Star Trek world who don't know the TV show 'Supernatural' all that well, my Sam is a descendant of one of the brothers from the show. All is explained within the story (I don't think I've missed anything), and I hope you enjoy it.

A/N2: For those of the 'Supernatural' world who haven't read my story, Not Alone, Sam is half Vulcan. Her father saved her mother from something (I haven't explained what in that story), but was injured badly enough that she took care of him. They fell in love only for T'Hea to die during childbirth many years later. Sam's father left Vulcan and she was raised as a Hunter, while keeping her existence secret. If you want to know more, feel free to read Not Alone. It's not essential, but may explain a few things.

A/N3: This chapter is the same as the last chapter of Not Alone, with a few words altered for those who do not know the Start Trek universe.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Star Trek characters nor the Supernatural ones.

* * *

Captain James 'Jim' T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise, looked around as the lights in the mess hall suddenly flickered and the temperature dropped enough that he could see his breath for a moment. He breathed out again, and a fog formed in front of his mouth. He looked around to Commander Spock as the silence registered. The lights never flickered unless there was major damage, and the cold only happened when there was a hull breach. Everyone was still and had remained in their seats.

Except for his half Vulcan Navigator, Samanthea Winchester. She had stood, stepping clear of the table and pulling on her gloves. She then picked up a salt shaker, broke it open and held it in her hand. She was looking around the room, her eyes never resting on anything for more than a few seconds. Jim saw another person standing, and Winchester's roaming eyes latched onto them. It was Ensign Sable, a Thesian that had joined them after their stopover at Earth. It, (no one knew if it was male or female, and Sable hadn't said) had started to advance on a young female Lt, Tig'san.

"Hey!" Winchester called out suddenly, making the Ensgin turn to her. "Leave him."

Jim wondered what she was talking about, until the Ensign spoke. Jim had spoken to Sable a couple of times, and he sounded nothing like she did then.

"Why, when he has so many arms to use?" The Thesian had four arms, and Scotty had found them very useful over the past several months since he had joined engineering.

 _Well, that answered the gender question._ He thought. _But what the hell was going on?_

Winchester suddenly held out her hand, "Spock, don't!"

Spock was still standing beside him, not behind Sable, as her hand was indicating. But it had the desired effect, making Sable turn around. Then, with the speed at which only a Vulcan can move, she raced over to him and shoved a fist full of salt into his mouth.

Jim watched in shock as something exploded out the back of the Ensign. It vanished so fast all he could see of it was a grey-black blur.

"It's ok, you're ok now, it's gone, you're safe." He heard Winchester murmur over and over again as she laid Sable on the floor, Dr Leonard 'Bones' McCoy wiping his face as he rushed over to help the man. Jim was shocked to see black goo running from his mouth, eyes, nose and ears. He looked to Spock, but he looked as shocked as he did, as did everyone else in the room. He went over and was about to demand an answer when a sound came from her. She reached behind her and pulled something from her back pocket.

She took a moment to look at the screen before flipping it open and answering, placing it so it covered the side of her face from her ear to her mouth. It looked like a communicator, but not. "What have you got, Dean?" She reached out to the Ensign's face as she listened, "Because I'm older, and I asked first." She growled as she wiped some of the goo onto her glove-covered fingertips. She suddenly winced at the reply, before sighing deeply.

She took a breath as she rubbed her fingers and thumb together, smearing the black substance. "Ectoplasm, I've got ectoplasm." She stood and looked at him then, "We've got one seriously pissed off spirit on board."


	2. We are Hunters

Here's chapter 2, Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Star Trek characters nor the Supernatural ones.

* * *

Leon watched in shock as Sam continued to talk into the device as she left the room, motioning for him, Spock and Jim to follow. Spotting a nurse nearby, he ordered her to look after Sable. Not knowing what was happening, they followed.

"I'm in the officer's mess on deck 1, lights fritzed and cold spots." She suddenly pointed to a red shirt officer. "Singer, spirit. Secure this level, no one on or off, get Fitz, and tell the others, I want you all in pairs. We got a nasty one." She called out to the Ensign as she left the room.

"Dean, I'm not stupid, not after what happened last time, I'm wearing gloves." She said as she tucked the device into her shoulder and continued talking. She took out a cloth and cleaned her hands of the 'ectoplasm'. They entered the Captain's conference room, just off the bridge, and Sam put the device onto the table and pressed something on the screen, allowing them to hear Dean. "Alert the others, I want you…"

"I heard, you want us in pairs." Dean had an Australian accent, like Sam.

From their familiarity, and her words 'I'm older' he guessed that they were siblings, but there was no mention of a brother in her file; so why had she never mentioned him?

"Good. We swept the ship just after went left Littaner and got nothing then, and the only place we could have picked up anything is with New Vulcan or Earth."

"And since no one other than you, Leonard, Commander Spock and the Captain left the ship and none of you brought anything back, that leaves Earth."

"Right," she said. "Get a list together of everyone that brought something back, or had something delivered. And get a list of all the supplies that were brought on board, maybe something got in that way. And find out who was on the screening detail." She sounded annoyed at whoever it was.

"You got it, Sis. I'm hearing an echo, am I on speaker?"

"Yeah, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are with me. They saw everything." Leon wondered at the sudden formality with their last names.

There was a pause on the other end. "Oh, boy."

"Yeah, tell me about it. Secure your section, get Novak and Mills to cover you then get ready to join me to hand out the usual. I think I'm going to be here for a while."

"Think it'll go for the bridge?"

"No, that's too well warded, besides, it seemed to want a female Lt. You said the others were female too?"

"Yeah. Sam, it's not pretty."

"It never is. Keep the area clear and get them to medbay 4. I'll contact you soon." She snapped the device closed then tucked it back into her pocket. She sighed and was about to look up when Kirk exploded.

"What the hell is going on, Lt? What others?"

"50021150 Sierra November."

Silence. The only sound that was heard was the air being pumped into the room. Jim looked from him to Spock to Winchester. As Alpha crew, they had all been ordered that when that code was given, they were to obey whomever gave it.

"You?" Jim spoke first, "What does it mean?"

"It means, until we figure out where this ghost came from, and we get rid of it, I'm acting Captain." She was about to say more, only to have the intercom buzz.

"Medbay 4 for the Captain." A voice sounded. It sounded like Dr M'Combe.

Kirk looked at her confused for a moment before he answered the comm. "Kirk here."

"Captain, I've got Ensign Campbell here with two bodies, demanding I start an autopsy. What's going on?"

"Bodies?" He snapped, looking at Winchester. Leon had thought that someone had been hurt, not killed, when the Lt had mentioned others.

"LtC Morrows and an Enlisted officer, L'in. Dean came across Morrows after he followed a cold spot. L'in was found by her roommate. I need to know how they died so I know what to look for to get rid of the spirit." She looked at Jim, not flinching.

Several moments passed in which she and Jim had a silent staring contest before he said "Do as he asks. For the moment, Lt Winchester is acting Captain."

"Dr, did Campbell show you a badge?" She pulled something from another pocket and laid it on the table. It looked like a bill-fold, only it held a metal object and had a photo on the other side.

"Yes, a five-point star surrounded by flames." The description matched what Winchester had placed on the table. Leon was looking at her in shock. It was a Starfleet registered license, and if the wording was to be believed, for a Supernatural Department.

"Alert your medical personnel, they see that, they do as asked."

"Captain?"

"Do as she says. Something's happening here and I don't know what it is, but she does."

"Yes, Sir."

"Dr, Ensign Sable was also attacked in the mess hall on the command level, please have him moved to your medbay if he isn't already there. I want all the victims in the one place." With that, she closed the device with a sigh.

They all looked at one another a moment before Winchester sat down. Leon followed suit.

Spock spoke suddenly "Is this what you meant when you spoke of things that I might perceive as a threat to the ship?"

"When we tested our blood? Yeah, this is a part of that."

"Dlece. Your father saved T'Hea from something." Jim said, "That's what he threatened to tell us about?"

"Yes, I countered with the fact that Dlece tried to kill him after his daughter defied him and married Dad. It's one of the reasons that there are no records of their marriage."

She sighed. "Bear with me, this is a long and complicated story."

"We're called Hunters. Me and my brother, Dean. Robert Singer, Fitz AKA Garth Fitzgerald XVII, Charlie Novak, the twins, John and Janet Mills and around another 20 of us are aboard. Every ship within the fleet has at least four or five. Usually we can deal with something without alerting you, but, this is too big. Even if you hadn't seen what happened in the mess hall, the bodies and everyone else would have made it impossible to hide it."

"What exactly are Hunters?" Jim asked. Leon wasn't aware they were anything other than people who hunted animals for food or sport.

"We deal with the supernatural. Demons, angles, werewolves, vampires, … ghosts. Anything that can't be easily explained. Earth is the only place in the universe that still deals with such things. There are Hunters there to deal with them. Our job on the ships is to make sure nothing of that nature interferes with them. Ghosts and at least one demon have destroyed five ships that we are aware of already."

"Five? Explain." Spock asked, shock clear in his voice. Leon also wanted to know what it was that had brought down the ships, and when. He hadn't heard of anything of the sort. But then again, would anyone know what to look for?

"To ordinary people, like yourselves, it would have looked like a cascade of electrical failures with no visible or viable cause. To us, reading the reports and hearing the stories of the survivors, we put two and two together. It started when Dad died, and I left hunting to look after Dean, who was only five. I joined Starfleet, and it was in my second year that we were studying how the loss of the USS Voyager effected the negotiations of Vernasis. While everyone else focused on that, I spotted the eyewitness accounts and reports that indicated a ghost." She stood and replicated a pitcher of water and glasses.

"I looked back over every ship lost till that point and saw that there were two others. I made an appointment with Admiral Archer, explained things, and got permission to get Hunters on board the ships."

"How did you convince the Admiral that such things exist? As a Starfleet officer, he would not have taken the word of a Cadet without facts." Spock asked as she returned to the table.

"He was a Hunter, until he lost his wife and kids to a ghoul. Left the life and joined Starfleet." She took a drink before continuing.

"I managed to get another half-a-dozen Hunters into the academy pretty quickly. Word got around and others wanted to join, but you have to have a relatively clean record. Grave desecration and murder were things that kinda put a damper on entries."

"Grave…" Leon let the rest of the sentence fade at those words.

"In order to kill something, you have to do things that normal people wouldn't understand the reason behind."

He couldn't believe that the woman he was falling in love with was the same one that sat in front of them. She looked like a leader, a Captain; a stranger. "Who are you?"

"I am who I've always been, Leon. You've seen the doors in my mind. This is what was behind them." She tentatively reached out to his hand on the table, he left it there, but didn't make a move toward hers. He didn't know what to think.

"Why so many on the Enterprise? If five is enough for the other ships, why more than five times that number here?" Jim asked, pulling Leon from his thoughts.

"Because it's the Enterprise?" She said as though it was the most obvious thing in the galaxy. "The Enterprise is on a five-year mission, Captain, a long way from Earth. Before Krall," She sighed and closed her eyes. Leon could see tears in them and he looked to Jim, who's face lit up in realisation.

"You had Hunters on board, and lost them all."

She nodded before lifting her head again, "There were six. From what I've read, only one survived the initial attack, and was later sucked of life by him. That's never happened before. Losing an entire group of Hunters. One or two sure, but not all of them at once."

She buried her head in her hands, and this time, Leon couldn't stand it. He moved and wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she cried. He had a feeling that she hadn't grieved for them since hearing about it.

"You knew them?"

"I know all of them. I know who works well together, who needs to be kept away from others, everything. They are my people. Winchesters have been leading the Hunters for over a hundred years, keeping the Supernatural in check. We've managed to wipe out every vampire in the Western States. Werewolves are trapped within the mountains in Canada and there hasn't been a demon sighting in fifty years anywhere on Earth. But space?! Humans are still trying to sneak things past security, quarantine and we have to mop up the results when they happen to be Supernatural, and in space, it can kill everyone."

A few moments passed as she grieved and got control of herself. Leon spotted Jim and then Spock go to ask something, but he shook his head to silence them for the moment. When she lifted her head, Jim asked

"You said that there had only been three while you were at the academy. How did the other two happen?"

"I found another that had happened decades before. The fifth one happened while we were all still there. From the reports of the survivors, the cause was put down to an unknown entity taking control of the Captain. They reported that his eyes went black, and that even after firing a kill shot from a phaser at him, he didn't go down. He even flung people across the room when he was nowhere near them." Leon remember hearing about that. He had been reading the reports when he started at the academy ten years after it happened.

"They are all signs of demon possession. After that, Archer managed to get Hunters into the work crews building the ships. Their job was to put protective warding into the bridge and around any critical systems. With the ones almost finished, it was difficult. But those that had just been started, every plate, screw, bolt and nut was warded against being used by anything Supernatural. And when you throw in everything that I had been learning from my other class, they became that much stronger."

Suddenly the lights flickered again, causing Sam to jump up.


	3. Meeting Baby

A/N: Here is the third chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, but the plot is all mine.

I've just edited this chapter slightly as I picked up a slight problem.

* * *

Suddenly the lights flickered again, causing Sam to jump up. Several screams came from the bridge through the other door, and they all ran. Leon saw an Enlisted Officer, frozen in the doorway to the turbolift. As he watched, something was pulled from the Officer as he collapsed. He went to help, only to be held back by Sam. And he could see why. A shadow was still in the doorway. She moved forward, the flickering lights causing her movements to seem jumpy. She pulled a metal bar from above the doorway and swiped it through the shadow. It vanished, but Sam still stood on guard.

"Who'd it follow?" She called out, looking around the room. Everyone stood still until Jim called out,

"Answer her. She's in charge until this is dealt with."

Another Enlisted Officer stepped forward, blood dripping from a shallow wound on her arm, Uhuru supporting her. Leon immediately went to her. "Me, he came at me, there was no one else around to help. I managed to get away by hitting him. What happened?" He pulled a bandage from the kit he kept on his hip, to wrap around the wound until he could get her to the medbay. After that, he went to the guy on the ground. His breathing was ok, but without his Tricorder, he couldn't figure out why he was still unconscious. He used the console to contact the nearest medbay and organise transport for the injured to medbay 4.

"The warding around the door stopped him from entering the room and forced him from his meatsuit." Sam went over to the woman and looked at her wrist. She fingered the bracelet he saw.

"Whoever gave you this bracelet, you need to thank them. They saved your life."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"The beads have protective charms engraved on them. Not directed against ghosts, but powerful enough to allow you to get away." Ignoring the looks of surprise from all, she then moved to the turbolift door and laid a hand on the frame.

"Lt, UV light settings please." She asked the tech in charge of the room settings. Leon saw Jim nod and a moment later the room was bathed in black light.

Leon gasped at what was revealed. The walls and consoles were covered in symbols. A five- point star within a circle and surrounded by glyphs, similar to the badge she showed them earlier, featured the most. In front of the door to the lift, several around the captain's chair and on the steering and navigation console.

"What is all this?" Jim asked.

"I believe them to be protective symbols, Captain." Spock said, moving to one on the wall next to the viewing screen. "This one is of Vulcan origin." He looked to her.

"Yeah, might have used that PADD of yours for more than what you were teaching me. Dad knew some of them from his time on Vulcan," she nodded toward the one he had pointed out, "But I've found others since." She waved toward the doorway. It was covered in fine writing, almost feather like. "This is a mix of Earth, Vulcan and a few other planets' spells for forcing a possessing spirit from its meatsuit and holding it."

"Meatsuit?" Jim looked angry at her use of the word, and so was Leon.

"Nine times out of ten, the host is dead, and it's easier to deal with the loss if you refer to it as such. You go mad otherwise. While I'm glad he's ok, it's only a matter of time." She looked back to Jim, "Captain, I need you issue a ship-wide command that me and the others are to be obeyed without question. Don't think I didn't see that look of confirmation you gave. We'll display our badges so they know what to look for. Kaylin," She spoke to the Gamma shift pilot, "best drop us out of warp. If the ghost manages to get past the warding, I don't want it messing with the warp factor." She nodded then to the captain's chair. Jim issued the order as she pulled her badge and set it on her hip. He also explained simply that something was going on and that they knew what and were handling it. While that was happening, the medics arrived. Leon informed them of what was happening and told them to get the patients to medbay 4; he would be there soon. Something told him that she wanted to show the three something else.

After confirming that Kaylin was dropping them from warp, she stepped from the room, pulling the device from her pocket again.

"Dean, meet me at Baby." She snapped it closed before looking back at him and the others. "Well, you coming?"

Leon followed her, the others just behind him as she walked along the corridor. He saw some of the crew stare at her, and he knew why. It wasn't because of the badge, nor of the fact that they had been ordered to obey her, but rather her bearing. She walked tall, with a confidence born of experience. She looked nothing like the Navigational Lt that he had come to know. She still held the metal bar, and was about to ask about it when Spock beat him to the punch.

"Lt, what is the significance of the metal bar? And of the salt you used on Sable?"

"This," she said, holding the bar aloft, "is pure iron. It repels spirits, or can be used to trap them, same with the salt. Although I'm surprised the replicated salt worked, since it's not natural. Demons also don't like it, nor do a lot of other Supernatural beings, except angles. Takes an angle blade to kill those winged dicks."

"You kill angles?" Leon asked shocked.

"They're real?" Jim asked.

"Not me, they haven't been seen on Earth for a hundred years or so. They aren't the fluffy winged nice guys that the books paint. They are downright mean when they want to be." She threw back over her shoulder, reminding Leon again that here was a woman in her true element. "This," holding the bar aloft again, "is real. Great times four or five Grandfather nicked it from a home when iron was used to make fire stokers."

They had taken several turbolifts as she spoke, and they now stood at the door of a large cargo area. A man in his early twenties was waiting for them, and Leon realised that this was the brother Dean.

"Since you know these guys," She said as they reached him, "guys, this is my brother, Dean Campbell."

"How're they taking it?" He asked. He had blonde hair and green eyes, though not a deep green like Sam's and was a good six or seven inches taller. He stood like she, with an air of confidence. They looked nothing alike, and Leon could see how no one had connected them together.

She looked them over a moment "Still digesting. It attacked another female." She said as they entered the room. Leon and the others following; Sam and Dean still talking as though they didn't have an audience, like they were commenting on the weather.

"She ok?" Dean asked as they headed in. They were aiming for an aft section.

"Yeah, remind me to ask her who gave her that bracelet; it has some nice warding on it that allowed her to get away. Oh, the meatsuit it used, male again."

"There's a pattern if I ever saw one."

"Yeah, I've texted Jones to see if they have anything in common. Anything from the autopsy?"

Before Dean was able to answer, they reached an area that had a wall of crates, and Leon was getting a bad feeling.

"Ah, Sam? This place is giving me the heeby geebies."

Sam and Dean looked over their shoulders at the three men following them. "Good," Dean said. Leon and the others shared a look.

"Spells are working fine." Sam continued, as she opened a crate and lifted out a bowl. "We've put warding around this area to give people a bad feeling and leave. Can't have the uninitiated stumbling onto Baby now, can we?" She said as she sprinkled a couple of things into the bowl. She asked for their hands, and quickly pierced a finger with a needle before any of them could say a thing. "Sorry, only way you'll get in, and it'll only work this one time."

Leon watched fascinated as the blood dripped into the bowl. She then tossed in a match. He and the others stepped back as it flared.

"Normally we don't have to do this, but since you weren't part of the initial spell, you won't be able to enter the area until we do this." Dean said as Sam said a few unusual words. "The others can enter because their blood is part of it, but all that would happen for you guys is you would hit an invisible wall made to look like the crates."

"Hence the 'heeby geeby' feeling." Sam said as she stood. "It's a spell that makes a person feel uncomfortable and leave the area, because they think it's unsafe."

Following Sam and Dean, Leon walked through the creates. An old black car appeared as they went through.

"What kind of car is this?" Jim asked, his voice in awe. Leon remembered his liking of old vehicles.

"Baby here, is a 1967 Chevrolet Impala." Sam answered as she walked past it, sliding a hand along the bonnet as she did so. Leon saw the love she had for the car.

"She still run?" Jim had walked over to it by now and was looking at every detail. He could understand why. A car that was a couple of hundred years old in a good as condition as this one was, was rare to the point of non-existent.

"Yep." She pulled the keys from the steering column and continued toward the back as Dean spoke.

"Belonged to one of our ancestors. From what we've been able to find, Dean and his brother Sam were raised in it. This car was their home." Dean said, walking over to her.

"Wait, Sam and Dean? That's where you guys got your names from?" He asked.

"I was telling the truth when I said I was named after my great uncle. The elder child retained the name Winchester, while the younger got the ancestral Mother's maiden name, both got their first names if possible. Kept us hidden from some pretty nasty things over the years with the use of different last names." She opened the trunk with a squeak and ducked under it, Dean joining her a moment later,

"We need to find some more iron for rounds." He said, as Leon and the others joined them at the back of the old car. "Had to use a few before Q'tincr."

The floor of the boot had been lifted and chocked with a sawn-off shotgun. Underneath was a myriad of … everything. Guns and knives of all sizes were strapped to the underneath of the floor, there was even a silver spike. Jars held still in a crate with what was in them written on top (sheep knuckles, angle feathers, Ronan twigs, funeral cloth). Bags of all sizes were scattered around and several boxes of ammo with symbols on top could be seen sprinkled amongst the rest. It was these, that the siblings were looking through.

"I know. I got some back on Lattiner. Haven't tested to see if it works yet, but they said it would. Chemical makeup is the same." She loaded another shotgun with white rounds before having it take the place of the one holding the floor up. "Got some salt too. I don't think that replicated stuff will work a second time." She loaded it with more rounds and set it on the floor beside her.

"Just lucky that first time?" Dean copied her movements with several others.

"Or it wasn't expecting it. What did the autopsy show?" She asked again as she stood and dropped the floor, handing the gun to Dean and picking up the other. They both placed a hand on the hood to slam it close with a creaking thud.

Dean took a moment to look over at the men beside them, and continued when Jim nodded to show that he wanted to know. He sighed and took a breath before saying, "Both had their throats slashed." Leon wasn't the only one who gasped, but he noticed that Sam only winced. "Morrows also had major wounds on her lower abdomen. M'Combe was looking into that when you called me here. He'll contact us once he's finished with her."

"So you're thinking it got interrupted before it could continue with L'in?" Sam asked as they each shouldered a bag and made their way back to the lift. Leon got the 'bad vibes' feeling again as they made their way through the 'wall'. The hair on the back of his neck stayed standing until they exited the lift.

"Maybe. I've got Jones looking into their backgrounds, as well as that of the Officer that survived."

"She said he just came at her, no warning. McCoy, I want you to head to the medbay and see what the Officer from the bridge has to say. I'll have, who's near there?" She paused as she and Dean went through who was where. Singer and Fitz were in the mess hall the ghost first appeared in, Mills and Novak were covering the floors where the victims were found and Jones was doing research in the science section, with Turner.

"Smith and Wesson have the engineering section locked down," Dean added, "Janet Mills is on that level."

"She'll meet up with you there, McCoy." She said as she handed him one of the bags she had on her shoulder.

"Why are you using last names, Sam?" He asked, taking it, but not moving off.

They both paused for a moment; and Leon could have sworn that he could see an apology in her eyes, before Sam straightened and headed off, throwing "Dean, make sure the Dr gets there in one piece." over her shoulder as she left the hallway.

* * *

A/N: And I couldn't have this type of story without the brother's precious Baby in it. That episode is still my favourite. Hope you liked it. How they got her on board they will answer in the last chapter.


	4. Medbay Answers

A/N: So, this chapter is a little shorter than usual, but that's because I'm changing viewpoints. I'll post another after this one. Again, I don't own Startrek or Supernatural characters.

* * *

"You got it, Sis." Dean replied, taking the bag from him as he watched his sister walk away. Leon could hear the sadness in his voice. "It's only a matter of time," he said, turning to them, "before this thing figures out that she's in charge, and that we are those closest to her. And when it does, it's going to take control of one of us. You and me, Doc, are the closest to her. Me as her brother, you as her lover."

"She is distancing herself." Spock said suddenly.

Dean looked at the Commander, "You got it, Commander." He hefted the bags and started to walk toward the medbay, with Spock, Jim and himself following. "She's never told anyone what happened to Dad, but from what I was able to find out, he was possessed. She acts like this every time a ghost is around." The fact that their father must have been possessed by a ghost was left unsaid.

They walked in silence until they passed the lift to the bridge. "The safest place for you, Captain, Commander Spock, is either on the bridge, or your rooms. They are the most heavily warded. With half the Hunters guarding the critical areas or doing research, and the rest clearing the ship, I can't spare anyone to accompany you elsewhere." Dean said.

Leon looked at Jim and Spock a moment, before they nodded and headed into the lift. Alpha shift had started an hour earlier, while they were down with Baby, and Leon didn't envy trying to explain what was going on. As it was, he would have to explain to the medical personnel. Oh joy.

He led the way to the medbay that M'Combe was doing the autopsies in and where the personnel from the bridge attack had been taken to.

He turned to Campbell when the younger man pulled out a device that looked similar to the one Sam had. "What are you using?"

Dean paused as he was about to put it away after typing on it to confirm that Janet Mills was waiting for him and held it up. "This?" at his nod, he went on to explain that they had found a heap of them in the trunk of Baby. They were 21st century communication devices called cell phones. After powering them up and adapting them to the ship's technology, the Hunters on board had a secure way of contacting and communicating with one another.

They entered the medbay several minutes later, and Campbell asked for updates on the victims from the bridge. When Chapel handed him a PADD, Dean asked "Can I speak to them?"

"Why? I thought the autopsies were what Sam wanted to know about." Leon paused in his examination of the information on another PADD.

"They are, but they might have caught a glimpse of something from the spirit that could help us." He said as he handed a few things out from the bag to a woman he assumed was Mills. For some reason, she was dressed in jeans, top and a well worn jacket, into the pockets of which, many of the items Dean was passing to her disappeared.

"Like?" He asked as Mills took a guard position outside the room.

"Like, ah … a snapshot of a memory, or maybe feelings." Dean said as he headed toward the area they were in.

He looked over the PADD reports on the victims and saw that Sable was still out. "You can talk to Zinar, but Sable is still out cold." He wondered at that until Dean said,

"He's not human. His body may respond differently to others, plus, there's no telling how long it was in him. Contact one of us when he wakes please, he may have seen something."

Leon put the PADD down after writing a notation to that effect and turned to examine the wound on the woman's arm.

"Officer Zinar," Dean asked the man, "What's the last thing you remember?"

Zinar looked to Leon. "Answer him, Zinar. He and anyone who has that badge are in command until this is over." He said, knowing that he had been unconscious when Jim had made the announcement.

Zinar nodded, "I, ah I was heading toward the head on the main deck, then nothing until I woke up and saw Dr M'Combe and his Tricorder." He looked over at the woman he had attacked. "What happened? What did I do?"

"You were possessed by a ghost. _IT_ made you attack Swells. You did nothing wrong." Dean said, laying a hand on his shoulders and giving it a squeeze. Leon looked up as Swells looked over to him.

"You weren't in control, Mike. I don't blame you."

"A ghost?"

"Yeah," Dean said, "Can you remember anything from the spirit? Feelings, memories?"

Zinar thought for a moment, while Dean ran a device he pulled from his bag over him. A screeching whir sounded for a moment, but nothing further happened when he ran it over him again. Leon watched him as he finished looking over the wound on Swells.

"I remember walking to the head, then, hatred. I can remember seeing Tina, Swells, but it was like it wasn't with my eyes." Dean took a turn around the room as he spoke, pausing at the disposal bin when the device whirred again.

"That's what it feels like when a ghost has control. You can feel your body move, but you know it's not you moving your limbs." Dean said as he returned to the biobeds.

"Yeah. I remember feeling hatred, but it wasn't mine. There was a knife, but I don't remember where it came from."

"What did it look like?" Dean asked, suddenly.

"A really wide bladed knife." He held his hands apart to show its width.

"A cleaver?" He looked over to Swells to see if she could confirm.

"I didn't really see it. One second I was heading to the bridge to hand a PADD to the Gamma leader, the next, I was swung around and Mike was slashing at me. I took a swing at him to get him to back off, that's when I ran." She looked at the bracelet that Sam had checked out before. "Lt Winchester said it has a protective charm on it, that it helped me to get away."

"You are very lucky." Leon said as he laid her back and covered her with a blanket. "You're safe here." He looked over at Dean. "Right?"

"Yeah, the bridge, engine rooms and all the medbays are warded against anything we could think of." He looked back to Zinar. "Your both safe here. Thanks Officer Zinar, what you've said is a big help. You think of anything else, Mills is right outside." Dean patted the man's shoulder and headed out, pulling the device out of the pocket he had put it into.

"What is that?" Leon asked as he followed him into another room.

"An EMF reader." He said, distractedly. He was fiddling with a dial on it and didn't look up. "Electro Magnetic Frequency. Ghosts give it off when they are in the area."

"Wouldn't just about everything on board the ship interfere?" Leon may not know much about ghosts, but he knew that just about everything on board gave of an electronic hum; half the time that was what calmed Jim down when he was worried about the ship. He took the PADD that M'Combe handed him.

"Normally, but we spent six months tuning it to this ship, so the only things that will interfere will be anything we've missed, or that has just been brought on board." He stopped fiddling at that. "Come to think of it, why now?"

"What?" Leon asked as he looked over the autopsy reports. Looking up, he could see the cogs turning in Dean's mind.

Dean turned back to him, tapping the EMF reader against the opposite palm. "I mean, we left Earth months ago. We haven't really stopped anywhere long enough to bring anything on board, yet, it waits until now to make itself known."

Leon looked up from what he was reading as he thought about that. "That unusual?"

"Yeah, ghosts always attack as soon as they're disturbed, or when a certain set of circumstances happen. Our ancestors came across a ghost that only came out every leap day, locking down the house it was in and killing anyone inside." He continued to tap the EMF reader as he thought things through.

Leon turned back to the reports as he put it back in the bag. He gasped as he read what had been discovered during the autopsy.

"Doctor?" Dean was beside him a second later. "What do the reports say?"

"Morrows' womb is missing." He stopped there, as he digested the rest of it. "And there were traces of L'in's blood in her wounds."

"L'in was first." Dean said as he took the PADD from the doctor's limp fingers. "the removal of the womb was not exactly done with precision, but there is a bit of skill used." He mused, his tone calm, seemingly not repulsed by what he was reading, and it irritated him.

"How does this not affect you? This was a fellow crew member!" His Georgian drawl turned into a growl as he spoke.

"You are mistaken in thinking that it doesn't, doctor. It's the same for Sam." Dean looked up then, and Leon could see the anger at the spirit and revulsion at what had been done; barely contained, within his eyes. He held Leon's gaze for a moment longer, making sure that he knew just how deeply it was affecting him. "I have to remain detached or else it will consume me and leave me unable to think. We're in a giant spaceship, trapped, with a ghost that has the power to destroy it. I have to look at things differently in order to work."

Leon backed off at that. Having heard that there had been ships destroyed because of ghosts, he knew that the younger man was simply doing his job.

"It's the same with Sam using you last name, Dr." Dean said suddenly, handing back the PADD. "She's half Vulcan, and as such, there is the real possibility that she will live a couple of centuries, vastly outliving everyone on board, with the exception of Commander Spock. Yet she has chosen to get close to you. You are the first person she has let get so close since Dad was killed." Dean collected the bag, "She is distancing herself, just in case. She feels things differently because of her Vulcan half. Sam was devastated after Dad, and it took everything in her to keep going. She lost the only other person at that time that understood her. I was 5, and didn't get it until later. Don't be too hard on her, this is the only way she knows to cope." He left then, telling Mills to contact him or Sam if Zinar remembered anything further.

Leon watched him go, thinking about everything that had happened since the lights flickered and Sam jumped up, breaking the finger-meld that morning. He caught a flash of terror from her before they disconnected. He had also felt overwhelming sorrow. He had a better understanding as to why now, and he vowed that he would help in any way he could.


	5. Bridge Finds Out

A/N: So, here is the change in view point. Now we see what happened with Jim and Spock after they left Dean and Sam. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

Spock followed Jim as he entered the bridge after leaving Winchester and Campbell. Taking his seat, he waited as Jim got the attention of all there.

"You may have heard that Lt Winchester, the navigator of Alpha shift, is Acting Captain until what happened in the mess hall a couple of hours ago, is cleared up. Has anyone heard of Hunters? In the sense of ghosts."

"Yeah, I have … uhhh." Sulu spoke up suddenly, groaning in realisation. "Winchester, I didn't even think to connect her name with them."

"What is it, Sulu?" Jim asked. Spock also wondered at the familiarity he heard in the voice.

"An ancestor was saved from a vampire by Hunters, Winchester sisters. It was a favourite story of ours growing up." He sat and rubbed his hand over his head. "How many on board?"

"Including Lt Winchester, 27." Spock said then. He informed them of the names that he knew, and where they were currently located and their job.

"Are we sure this is real?" Nyota asked.

"It is, Nyota. The dark shape that was trapped within the doorway was the ghost. The Captain, Dr McCoy and myself were in the mess hall when it attacked there. As, weird, as it may be, what is happening is real. Lt Winchester is in charge until it is dealt with."

"Also, as senior officers, myself, Bones and Spock were given a code to remember, and we were told to obey whomever gave it. Winchester did so shortly before Swells and Zinar came in." Jim said, sitting down and activating the UV setting, showing the warding again. "All this is designed to help keep us safe. Campbell, Winchester's brother and 2IC, said that this area, the engineering decks, medbays and our rooms are the most heavily warded." He said.

"So, what do we do?" one of the others asked.

"We monitor everything. I want to know about anything that isn't part of the running of this ship. If we don't what it is or what's causing it, we contact Winchester." He paused then, "Spock, any idea what it was they were using to talk to one another?"

"No, Captain. I have never seen anything like it." Spock answered as the turbolift sounded. He was baffled as to what the devices were.

"They're called cell phones." A voice sounded. Spock looked over and saw that it was Singer. He came over and handed one to Jim, Spock joining them. The man's accent sounded to be from Texas, and he was no longer in the Starfleet uniform. "Sam figured that you might need one here. It's more efficent than asking for us to comm you." He showed him how to activate it and contact Winchester. "Just press and hold the number 1 for a few seconds, it'll contact her phone. Dean is number 2, I'm 3 and Fitz is four."

"Is there anything else we can do to help?" Jim asked, taking the phone and flipping it closed. It was similar to the portable comm. devices. He looked it over before looking at Singer.

"Yeah, Jones could use another pair of eyes to look over everything." He said. "Also, Captain, if you could issue an order to keep crew to their quarters unless to attend duties or their assigned shifts. It would help with clearing people and rooms. We need to do a room by room search, but it's hard with people scattered."

"Done." Jim said, "Anything else?"

Singer paused a moment, "This thing seems to go after females, and uses males to do it. All women are not to travel alone; they are to be in pairs or larger groups if possible."

"And I'm guessing you want the men to stay away from them?" Jim asked.

"If there are more women than men, I think they'll be fine."

"What is the meaning of your casual attire, Officer Singer?" Spock asked, catching the man before he left the room.

"The uniforms aren't designed for this. Our clothes, we've modified them to hold a lot of things. And, if we're going to be Hunting, we might as well wear _our_ uniform." With that, Singer left.

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Several hours later found Spock looking over everything that had been brought on board during their stopover on Earth. He had contacted Jones, and was now helping her to go through the list. Everyone on the bridge, the women going as a single group, left the bridge to go to their rooms so that they could be searched. Everyone was cleared and Spock found it easier to concentrate, knowing that the people he was with, had not brought anything back that they shouldn't have. He knew of things that made it on board without clearing a quarantine check; the tribble incident while under Captain Pike many years before, the most memorable. (I haven't seen the full episode, but I've seen a some of it and found it funny)

Scotty was also going over everything he had ordered. Jones had mentioned that some of those items were shielded against supernatural scanning by how there were made and needed to be visibly inspected. She had found the Hunter who was meant to have done it, and found that they hadn't gotten to everything. They had found something and had 'cleansed' it, but then had forgotten to go back and finish. They hadn't been Hunting for long before they had been put into the academy.

From what he had been able to find out, Winchester, Campbell, Singer, Fitzgerald and an older man by the name of Max Devereaux were the only ones with the most experience. The rest were younger, with the exception of Devereaux, than the senior Hunters.

Alpha shift was ending, and the next shift was about to start. Spock left it to Jim to inform them of what was happening and agreed to meet Nyota for dinner.

"Everything ok, Nyota?" He asked. He had noticed that she had been very quiet that day.

"Yeah, just trying to wrap my head around everything. I mean, ghosts? I know what I saw, but I'm still trying to understand it." She said as she ate. "I didn't think I would ever see anything more unusual than what happened with Krall."

"I understand. Vulcan had only a very small number of its people still studying such things, and until now, I had no reason as to why that was. They all perished when Vulcan was destroyed. I believe that is what my Father was talking to Lt Winchester about when we were there."

"What did he ask her?"

"New Vulcan hadn't been cleansed when the last occupants had left, and as a result, several incidents had occurred." Winchester said as she paused at their table. She was dressed in jeans and a well-worn vest with a long sleeve shirt underneath and a backpack tossed over one shoulder. "When I left for a few moments, I did a hasty one that kept the city safe. I organised another Hunter to head out there and do a planetwide one when we got to Earth." She tossed over her shoulder as she left, "Think that was the reason they left, they didn't know what to do. The knowledge had been lost over the eons." She continued on after several other people that were similarly dressed.

Spock watched as they sat down and noticed that Singer, Campbell and others that he had been introduced to over the day were with her, as well as many others that he hadn't been. A quick head count revealed all 27 to be there.

"They must be the other Hunters." Jim said as he joined them.

"I heard the reason Singer gave on the bridge, but surely there has to be a StarFleet uniform designed for them." Nyota asked as she looked them over, not a single red, blue or gold shirt to be seen.

"Not if you want what they do to remain secret. I have no doubt that when they investigate things that don't require the whole ship to know, they remain in their uniforms." Jim said as he ate his meal.

"The StarFleet uniform isn't practical. We need to attach a toolbelt whenever we go off the ship." Dr McCoy said as he sat down. "The coats and jeans have everything stashed in them that they could need; believe me. You won't believe what I saw Janet Mills store when Dean showed up. Anything else is in the bags."

They all turned to the tables they had commandeered and saw that they had moved several of them together. It was now covered in large sheets of paper, and from what Spock could make out, they were covered in drawings. The bags were at the feet of their owners.

"They have drawn the ship's schematics, Captain." He said, drawing the other man's attention to the papers.

"Why have they done that?" He wondered.

Spock was of a similar mind. Such things weren't needed. Anything could be accessed on the PADDs. Sharing a look at one another, they finished their food, watching Winchester interact with the others.

It was clear that she knew them all, joking with some as they ate, listening to others and generally keeping an eye on things. Spock recognised the signs, as he had seen Jim do the same. She was making sure that her people were ok. It suddenly occurred to him that it had been over a year since they had relaunched from Yorktown. This was possibly the first time since then that they had been able to be themselves. They would have kept away from one another to avoid detection and his admiration for her and the others went up. No one had even suspected a thing.

Spock headed to them after disposing of his plate. Those at the table ignored him after a couple of glances, their attention returning to Winchester. Knowing that Jim, Nyota and Dr McCoy were standing beside him, he simply watched and listened.

"Are there any areas the EMFs haven't been calibrated to?" Winchester said, looking over the scattered maps. Spock could see her eyes taking in every detail drawn.

A woman picked up a pen and drew several circles on the well coloured plans. "These areas here we haven't been able to get to yet. We need authorisation to access them, and you're the only one at the moment that can." Spock watched as the Lt nodded and handed the other woman her authorisation card.

"This should work, Tara. I want them done by morning." She looked over the map and pointed out another area "This area been cleared?" It encompassed the medbay the bridge victims had been taken to that morning. He had heard they had all been released, except for Sabel, who was still unconscious.

"Yeah, Dean did it before he left." Janet Mills said. "Something tripped the EMF in the medbay, but I think it might have been the Ecto left over from when it used Zinar and Sable."

"Double check. I don't expect anything to happen until tomorrow, not after I hit it with the iron. Combined with the energy draining spell in the doorway, it should be pretty weak." Several others nodded. "How's it going with the EMF updates?" She turned and looked at Fitzgerald.

"We're getting there. We may have spent the first six months finding everything we could, but we haven't been able to collate it all, let alone update them until now." He said, handing several of the devices back to their owners and taking others. "Those areas Tara pointed out will need to be added once they're done."

Spock realised because of the clandestine nature of Hunting, they hadn't been able to get together to inform one another about things they had found. Sharing a look with Jim, they would be able to do so from now on.

"Dean raised a valid point about the timeline. Whatever held the ghost was disturbed at some point in the last day or so. Check to see what has only been accessed in the last 24 to 48 hours." After that, Winchester issued orders for most of the Hunters to get some sleep. They were going to be working in shifts from now on. Those that had been sleeping throughout the day would be on that night. They all headed off until only the four senior Hunters were left. Spock found himself sitting beside Winchester, with Nyota on his other side, as Jim and McCoy also joined them. Looking over the plans, he saw several areas that were coloured.

"What made you draw all this out?" Jim asked as he leafed through several sheets. Given the size of the Enterprise, and the many areas; there were a lot. Some focused on certain areas, the bridge, the engineering decks; others covered whole floors or sections. He could make out notations and symbols that had been placed on the walls.

"Anything electronic dies pretty quickly when ghosts are around." Winchester said as she looked over the sheets, writing something into the margins of an area several decks down.

"Or did you not notice the flickering lights when it showed up here this morning?" Singer continued.

"This way, we have something to look at and mark off when we've cleared an area." Spock noticed that she was still keeping her tone distant and not looking at any of them.

"We've cleared only about 20% of the ship, but so far, nothing." Dean said, pointing out the areas.

"Unless they need to be somewhere, the crew have been confined to quarters. Thanks for that, Captain. It'll make it easier for us and harder for it." She nodded in his direction, before she started to roll up the maps. "Singer, I want you on first thing. Fitz, you've got the afternoon. Dean and I'll take the night. Dean, you head to bed, I'll be right tonight."

"Sam, you've been up as long as everyone else."

"Yeah, but I don't need as much sleep. Go, I doubt I'll be wanting for company tonight." She looked up quickly at him, and Spock saw the question.

"I will ensure that your sister is safe, Officer Campbell." He said. He saw Dr McCoy go to say something, but Winchester forestalled him.

"Leon, please." It was the first time she had spoken to him directly all day, and he could hear the desperation in it. It had the right effect as he nodded, stood and headed off. Those left at the table watched in silence, and didn't notice Winchester leave. Spock did and slipped off after her.


	6. Distant Reasoning

A/N: Here we go. Enjoy. Not my characters, unfortunately.

* * *

He caught up with her in the hallway. "Why did you not want Dr McCoy to accompany you, Lt?" He asked as he fell into step alongside her.

She didn't answer for a moment, simply readjusted the large volume of paper in her arms. "Because if he did, I'd never let him leave my side. I wouldn't stop worrying about him, and it would make it hard to concentrate on what needs to be done."

"You brother mentioned that this is how you behave whenever a ghost is involved. And that it will eventually come after you, using either himself or Leonard."

"As a meatsuit, yeah." She stopped, and Spock saw her drop her walls completely for a moment. Tears came to her eyes as she spoke next, leaning against the wall behind her. "You have any idea what it's like to watch someone you love get taken over by something, and there's nothing you can do about it?"

Spock realised that she was talking about her father. "No."

"Do you know what it feels like to not have control of your actions? To have something else control you, and not be able to fight back in any way?"

"No, I do not, Lt." he was standing in a loose attention stance, hands clasped lightly behind his back. He dipped his head as a thought came to him, and he prayed he was wrong. "Has that happened to you, Samanthea?" He chose the use of her first name to convey his worry, and that he would help.

"A few times. Same with Dean. We at least know to expect it when we come up against something like this. Leon? You, the others? I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." He could hear her struggling.

"You have distanced yourself from us in an effort to make it choose one of you." Logically it made sense. Give it limited choices as to who it would hurt her the most, and it would only be able to go after the other Hunters, her brother being the ideal choice.

She pushed herself off the wall and continued on, her voice steady and distant once more. "That's the plan. Don't tell anyone else. The rest of us know it, but I don't want the Captain and the others to know."

"Might I enquire as to the reason?" Rationally, the 'us' were the other Hunters.

"You're Vulcan, you can hide your emotions better than everyone else. I may not have been raised like you, but I can put on quite the mask. I may seem cold, but it's the best way." She reached an office that, as far as he knew, wasn't in use. It seemed she had commandeered it at some point.

When the door opened, a sight greeted him that would be forever etched in his memory. It was filled with books, papers, and an assortment the likes he had never seen. What he had seen in the trunk of the car barely scratched the surface of what had been crammed in the room.

"This thing was so focused on trying to attack when it showed in the mess hall that it wouldn't have seen us together. Since then, the only person I've shown any affection for has been Dean."

Spock reasoned that the Hunters had set up the area as a place they could use to pass information to each other and to collect things without having to go down to the car all the time. As she spoke, he paced around the room, looking at everything in awe. While everything seemed scattered and chaotic, there was one wall that seemed to be dedicated to a collection of fictional works and personal journals. He read some of the titles; Wendigo, Route 666, Ghostfacers; over a hundred books filled the shelf, the last being Swan Song. After that were journals, many with similar and repetitive dates on them, in two different sets of handwriting. He went to pick up the first one after the fiction books, only for her to call out,

"As good as your shields may be, I doubt you can shield against the emotions they carry. Gloves are hanging next to them." He looked over and saw that she placed the plans on the table and set about laying them out so others could access them as needed.

"Your ancestor's?" He asked as he donned them and pulled one from the shelf. He flipped to the last page and saw the date at the top, May 17, 2010. The handwriting was hard to read due to the shaking of the hand that wrote it.

 _Sam's gone, and I've kept my promise to him. To have an apple pie life. Lisa and Ben have been kind enough to let me in … …_ (the ink had been blurred by what he suspected was a teardrop) _o do, I_ _ **miss**_ _him so_ _ **much.**_

He closed it and placed it back on the shelf. Removing the gloves, he touched the spine for the barest of moments. He snapped his hand back; sorrow that overwhelmed his own at the loss of his mother, made him step back.

"Told you." Winchester was standing next to him, running her fingers across the journals. Spock saw her face, flinching as the emotions from the books entered her. She turned from them and headed back to the table.

"I've noticed the Captain has been treating me as a member of the crew, as have you. As such, he will find all this easier to accept. Scotty sees me as a close friend, someone he can talk to about anything he wants, and knows that I can keep up with and challenge him if I see things differently. McCoy, …" She paused, leaning on the table with her hands, "Leon's …" She paused, dropping her head as she struggled with emotion before she took a breath and centred herself.

"He's trying to find Sam, his lover, and not seeing Winchester, the Hunter. I've been doing this my whole life, _this_ is what I know." She swept a hand across the room, "Relationships that don't include Dean or other Hunters, I've got no clue how to deal with." As she went to another table and set about unloading the bag she had been carrying, she continued.

"I've lost Hunters, friends, innocents. One thing I've learnt, when the supernatural comes into play, the best way to lessen the hurt, is distance. I thought that it was just me, with the amount it hurt, but since you've been teaching me,"

"Vulcan's feel things on a far deeper level than humans." He finished. "Our attachment to those we care for, love, is far stronger, and as such, we feel that loss far more. I understand." And he did. The loss of Vulcan, and especially of his mother, was still as strong today as it was when it happened, even though it had been nearly eight years.

They spent the remainder of the night patrolling the ship, clearing it section by section. Spock had enquired as to the shot guns that they had all been carrying, and once told the shells contained rock salt and iron filings, asked if the rest of the crew might be able to carry one.

"What you see is what we have, it was hard enough to sneak Baby on board, let alone enough weaponry to arm the ship. Besides, the ship is tasked with first contact. Can't have that much artillery showing up on the scans of races that can detect them. They might not like it."

"Logical." Had been the only response to that.

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It was early the next morning, when Spock saw just how strong her mask was. Dr McCoy had come in while she was having breakfast with the some of the other Hunters, Spock joining Jim before heading to bed. He was talking to him while he watched as the Dr went over to her and asked if she was ok. Whatever she had said, it was enough to make him step back from her, a look of hurt in his eyes. She had turned back to finish getting their reports and issuing orders to the day shift without a backwards glance. The other Hunters didn't even bat an eyelid at the exchange. McCoy sat at a table on his own after that, shunning LtC Scott and Uhuru when they tried to join him.

Knowing of the half-formed plan, he understood the reason, but for the Georgian, he knew that she was going to have a hard time making it up to him. Seeing her head in their direction, he knew that Jim would try and get information about what she had said.

"Jim, please refrain from questioning the Lt about what just happened. Despite her indifference, she is struggling to keep her emotions in place." He placed a hand on his arm, something he rarely did, to convey the importance. He was glad when his friend nodded and simply asked what had happened overnight.

"Nothing we could find. I expected as much. Ghosts need time to regain their energy, and the draining spell from the doorway and the iron would have wiped out a good portion of it. Depending on the age and anger of the spirit, it could be today, or tomorrow when it will show up again." After finishing with the areas that had been covered, she informed them she was heading to bed.

"She sounds so different." Jim said as she left. "Nothing like the Lt from a couple of days ago."

"She sounds as you do, Captain, when faced with something that could kill us all. I first heard it during the incident with Nero. I saw it … when you realigned the core. When you fought Krall." He looked at his friend. "She is a leader of her people and she will do whatever it takes to protect us. She told me that the only way she can focus on the job at hand, is to distance herself from us. Put her feelings behind a wall, otherwise, the emotions she has for us, Leonard in particular, could overwhelm her."

"You've been teaching her Vulcan techniques for blocking emotions?"

"No, Captain, she taught herself; from a very young age, if I interpreted her words and actions from last night correctly. While not the manner I use, it works for her, even if it means she has sacrificed the bond she has formed with Leonard." He let Jim ponder over that as he headed to bed.


	7. The Office, AKA The Bunker

A/N: Here's the next instalment. I hope you enjoy it. I've not updated much as I've hit a slight snag with part 3, and didn't want to have this one all posted before I finished it. My writer's block is gone, plot bunnies are very hard to find in Queensland, and I hope to have part three fully written in a couple of weeks. Part 4 might see the introduction of yet another series that I love as well as our favourite brothers.

Wow, that's a long A/N, so without further ado, read on for chapter 7 and a view change.

A/N2: Oh, and points to those who can name the episode references! PM me an idea, and I'll see if I can fit it in the next story.

* * *

Jim nodded to Spock as his First Officer joined him for lunch later that day. He hadn't seen either Winchester or Spock leave the night before, but when he had noticed them gone, he hadn't been able to find them. He had seen the look they had passed between them, she wanted to talk to him about something, and he had a feeling it was something Vulcan related. He hadn't been able to ask about it that morning, so set about doing so then.

"Everything ok, Spock?" He asked as they collected food. "You both disappeared pretty quick last night."

"Yes, Captain. The Lt had a few things she wished to discuss with me." Jim could have guessed that.

"Anything you wish to share?"

"Only that I may need your help once this is over to convince Leonard that she was only doing what she has done to keep him safe."

 _Well, that was cryptic_. He thought. _Though, it may have something to do with the fact the Bones has been angrier than ever._ He'd had three nurses complain to him that morning, one in tears.

They ate in silence as Winchester and her brother arrived. She spoke to the Hunters there; they had kept to the same tables at the far end of the mess hall. Getting her reports from them, the siblings headed over to them.

"Winchester, Campbell, how's everything?" He asked. "Any idea on who this is, was?" He decided that he would ask about what happened that morning another time.

"Nothing yet, but it popped back up near engineering, lights went off a couple of hours ago." She said as she sat, her brother beside her. "Unfortunately, there's now a missing female Ensign from that area."

"How can she be missing? Aren't the ship's sensors picking her up?" He asked, pausing with a forkful of egg half-way to his mouth. He ate as Spoke answered.

"Lt Winchester did say that ghosts have the ability to disrupt electronic equipment." Spock spoke up.

"I thought the ship was shielded from that sort of stuff." He realised that he had spoken around a mouthful of egg as Winchester giggled.

"It is, but spirits and other supernatural beings don't exactly follow the rules of normal. They can disrupt even Baby, and she doesn't have a single thing that's digital in her." Campbell said as he indicated that he had egg stuck to the side of his mouth.

"So, the Ensign?" He asked as he wiped it away, going slightly pink in the cheeks.

"The only thing for it is to look in the crawl spaces in that area. Failing that, the majority of the ship is fair game for it. It could have hidden her anywhere. Ghosts, especially older, angrier ones have some major power. They can take someone through solid walls, even underground." Campbell said, his voice tinged with experience.

"The brothers took on a ghost that was still taking women decades after his death. Took a female Hunter they had teamed up with to un underground dungeon that hadn't been discovered when he was alive." Winchester said, sharing a look with Spock.

Whatever they had spoken about, she was a little more open with them now then she had been the day before. However, whatever she had said to McCoy had kept him away from her.

"I'm going to ask if I can have a few of the crew to look for her. Scotty's got Keenser looking in areas that are too small for the rest of us."

"Take whoever you need. Find this thing."

"Planning on it. Care to accompany me, Captain? I need to look up a few things." She said as she stood. Jim nodded and followed her as she deposited her plate and issued orders to the Hunters on her 'cell phone'. As she typed away on the device, he saw that Spock had gone to sit with Leonard, who had walked in just as Winchester left. Wondering what they were discussing, he caught up with her.

"So, what's the plan for the day?" He asked, having a feeling that she wouldn't be wanting to discuss what was going on with Bones.

"Something is still periodically setting the EMFs off around medbay 4, I've sent Dean and John back to see if they can figure it out. I'm heading back to the office, see if I can't do some research on this thing."

"How do you mean?"

"It's angry, as Zinar said. And powerful. To take and hide someone less than 24 hours after being hit with the type of spell it was caught in yesterday and being hit with iron; it has some serious age to it. Hopefully that and what it's done to those it's already gone after will narrow it down." By this point they had reached the Office.

Spock had told him a little about what he had seen, in that expressionless Vulcan way of his, but he hadn't done it justice. Where Spock saw chaos, he saw a controlled, organised mess. Guns of all sizes were laid out on a table in relatively straight lines, with ammo boxes next to them. He saw the words witches, werewolves, demons and ghosts written on some of them. Rags and other items were piled on another table that was devoid of anything else but one gun that lay in pieces. It was currently in the process of being cleaned by another Hunter. He nodded in greeting before putting it back together again and telling Winchester that he was heading off to medbay 4. Jim realised that he was John Mills.

Knives of all kinds were sitting on the shelves opposite to where the books were. Bags of all sizes hung under them, some with words written beneath, others distinctive enough to not need anything. Jars filled more areas, the contents easy enough to see.

And there were books everywhere, of all shapes and sizes. Some were typed, some handwritten from what he could see of the open ones, and they looked old. Hundreds of them filled the room, if he had to guess. The room had a musty smell, despite the air being pumped in and out, and he realised that it was coming from the books. He took a deep breath and felt relaxed.

He wondered how they had managed to get them on board. He turned to Winchester to ask, only to see her pull a PADD from the mess.

"Thought you said that those were ineffective." He said as he came over to her.

"For looking over large areas and when the ghost decides to make itself known. For research, nothing else is better."

"But the books?" He asked, waving a hand over the vast number of them.

"We know _what_ we're dealing with, not _who_. We've put on board a database of the most violent and well known deaths in Earth's history. If I type in what we know about the deaths and attacks, we should get a narrowed list. After that, we can start looking at things that have been brought on board that match them."

"That's … how did you manage to get all this on board?" He didn't have a comeback for that rather logical answer (he swore that Spock was rubbing of on her), so he asked his other question.

"Baby holds quite a bit. While the Enterprise was being rebuilt after Krall, we got as much to Yorktown as we could. Ghosts are the most likely thing to get on board, simply because everything else would be picked up in medicals. Snuck it up here gradually after we got her on board." She didn't look up from the PADD.

"You managed." He pointed out, coming to stand next to her and look at the PADD.

"Because I was taught how to work computers." She looked up then. "Captain,…" She sighed, "I'll explain things more once this is finished."

Nodding, he turned away from her. "Anything I can do to help?" He asked as he looked over the spines of the journals on the wall behind her. They spanned nearly thirty years, one set of handwriting showing up more than the other. His fingers ghosted along them; itching to pull one out and read it, but not knowing if he should.

"No, Hunters can read something and know instinctively if it's supernatural related on not. Normal people would just see it as 'Uh, that's weird' and not give it another thought. Same with what's happening now. I'll see something and know if it matches with what's going on here." Jim didn't see if she looked up, but she must have at her next words. "If you want, you're welcome to read them. Just put them back where you pull them from."

"They look old." He said as he pulled one down.

"They are the originals. The other ships have replicas, but they are the ones actually written by the brothers."

"How have they survived all this time?" He asked, awed at their age.

"A preservation spell. It's designed to keep them legible, just put the pages back if they fall out and let me know. I think I need to get Max to do it again."

"What happens if the ship gets destroyed, like with Krall?" He was running his hand over the cover, feeling the texture, taking in it's scent. He couldn't remember the last time he had held a book, let alone one this old. Paper books were extremely expensive, and were rarely printed. Everything was on PADDs and digital mainframes.

"This room has a spell on it tying it to a building back on Earth. It has enough supernatural energy to pull anything in here back there, though it might take a few years for them to show up. And before you ask, no, it can't do the entire ship. And I really wouldn't be in this room when that happens either, it's not designed for people."

Jim nodded and carefully opened the cover. It was like the others, well worn, stained and yellowed. Most of the covers ranged from black to tan to a pale brown, with a smattering of others mixed in. They must have simply gotten a book as needed and didn't much mind what they got. The one he had was a black soft leather cover, written by the brother whose journals didn't start until 2005. Next to it, written in the other hand, was another dated the same year with a hard cover. They were sitting above the fictional book called 'Woman in White'.

He spent the next hour reading it as Winchester poured over the PADD. He saw her take notes, and occasionally send out a message (called a text), to the others. It was mid-afternoon when she got a call from the medbay.

"Yeah." She answered, not looking up from her PADD.

"You'd better got down here, Sam." The voice Jim vaguely recognise as John Mills was coloured with worry.

"What's happened?" She said, standing and heading out, Jim quickly closing the journal and putting it back before hurrying after her.

"You'd better hear this for yourself. Sable's awake."


	8. Death of a Hunter

A/N: Here we go, enjoy! I'm sorry that I've not updated in a while, I've been away and where I was didn't have any internet. I'm back now, and almost finished story 4.

* * *

Jim followed her in silence until they reached medbay 4. The Mills twins were standing outside, and when they entered, he couldn't see any sign of Campbell, who he remembered had been sent there.

"What happened?" Winchester asked as she reached the bed where Sable was laying.

Sable looked to her a moment, taking in the vest, jeans and shotgun hanging from a sling. "I awoke here, the medical personnel telling me I was possessed by a ghost."

"Yeah. They tell you what happened?"

"That two of the crew are dead, I nearly attacked a third and …"

Winchester cut him off before he could guilt himself further. "You didn't do anything, IT did. Can you remember anything?"

He nodded, and one of his hands cradled his head. "Yes. I remember feeling hatred toward the females. The way they showed themselves to males." He paused a moment as his face turned a spactular shade of pink, before Chapel shoved a bucket under his mouth in time to catch him. Wiping his face with a cloth, he went on.

"I remember, *#!^*#." He cried out in his native language and ducked his face into his hands. "I killed them." The readings on the biobed above him started to wail.

Jim was about to console him when Winchester sat on the bed next to him and turned one of his hands over. Splaying his fingers out, she placed her five on five of his eight. His breathing slowed and he calmed down. The alarms quietened until nothing could be heard except for the heartbeat monitor.

The Lt looked pale and sick, but remained touching his hand. "What did you see?" her voice was strained, and she sounded like she herself would be sick.

"I saw, a street, lined in stone, lights in pretty glass boxes on poles, but not like on the ship, they flickered. I saw blood, surrounding a woman in a small dark street off the main street."

"I … " A flurry of his native language followed along with the wail of the biobed sensors again, prompting Winchester to nod to the Dr nearby. M'Combe came over and injected him with a sedative. As he fell asleep, his eyes widened in recognition, making him wonder. Winchester got off the bed, shaking her hand. Jim noticed that her whole body was shaking.

"You OK, Lt?" he asked, heading over to her.

"No. This spirit." She shuddered, rubbing her arms. "It's bad, we need to find the Ensign." She pulled out the phone and sent out a text to the others. "Sable saw the sprit's memories. It's not going to stop anytime soon. He saw where it liked to attack, and where it liked to leave its victims."

"You know where she is?" Jim asked as they headed toward a turbolift.

"No, but I have a better idea of where to look. I also have a better timeframe on its death." She said as she snagged a PADD from a passing crewmember. Accessing the data she had stored on the ship, she typed in a redefined search.

"How?"

"'Flickering lights in pretty glass boxes.'" She held up a vid of the boxes, a flame flickering inside, a row of them lining a stone lined street. "This type of gas lighting on streets was used until the early 20th century. Our ghost is almost four hundred years old. No wonder it's so powerful."

Jim took that in as they left the lift and walked toward engineering. He met up with Spock, Scott and several of the Hunters, Winchester explaining what Sable had been able to give her.

"His memories showed that she'll most likely be in an area of poor lighting and little foot traffic."

"There's no 'poor' lighting down here lass." Scotty said, annoyed at the suggestion. "I've got nothing on my scanners showing anything wrong with this sector."

"And I'll give you the same explanation as to why we have the ship drawn out, ghosts can play with electronics. Your PADDs may not show anything, but that's why I've had these guys patrolling the ship." She thumbed toward the Hunters. Jim recognised Dean and Singer, but the others were unknown. They looked very different outside of their Starfleet uniforms.

Singer stepped forward, "We checked with LtC Scott about some of the areas you asked about, and found a couple of spots with lights out. We haven't checked them out yet, we wanted some backup."

"What areas?" Scotty asked, Jim joined him in looking over the PADD information. Winchester pointed them out as they moved in the direction of them.

"Singer, take Harrison, Sanders and Scotty. Check out the port crawl spaces. Captain, you and Commander Spock are coming with me, Keenser and Devereaux." She dug into her bag, pulled out several metal bars and handed one to him and Spock. She and the other Hunters cocked their shotguns with loud sounds that were oddly comforting.

Jim followed the two Hunters, Spock beside him; as Keenser led them to the other area that had been found. Jim saw he and Winchester signing to one another and wondered what they were saying. Devereaux pulled Winchester up at one point and said they should split. She nodded and they separated as they reached the warp core, Devereaux with he and Spock, Winchester with Keenser.

"We're going to come from the other direction, Captain. Might find her sooner." He didn't sound optimistic.

"Your tone would suggest that you don't expect to find her at all." Spock said, catching the tone of hopelessness.

"With two dead, two others attacked? Winchester said that this thing is angry and hates women. Of course she's dead."

Devereaux sounded like he didn't have any hope for finding her at all, let alone alive. Jim knew that kind of thinking would bring the man down and he wondered how long he had been Hunting. He was the oldest he had seen, Winchester would be about ten years younger than him. He sounded washed out. Sharing a look with Spock, he knew that they would have to be on the lookout, as he didn't think that the Hunter would be able to react fast enough.

They had just taken a corner, when Uhuru and another woman turned a corner. Devereaux went still, then attacked them. Jim reached out to try and stop him, only to find himself shoved aside. He sat up and got to his feet just as the Hunter reached them. He pushed Uhuru aside and went for the other. A large knife appeared from nowhere and was headed straight for her throat.

Spock managed to get to him by that point, and had been able to grab his arms. Jim could see the strain on his face, before remembering that he could be picking up some very nasty thoughts. By now he had realised that the ghost was in the Hunter, and he looked for the iron that he had dropped from his hand when he had fallen. Finding it, he raced over to help, but didn't know how with the spirit in the Hunter. So he helped Spock to pull Devereaux away from the women. Once they were clear of them, he yelled at them to get away.

A hand shot past his head. It grabbed Devereaux's, and pulled it back from Spock and over his own shoulder. Another hand shoved salt into his mouth and a black-grey shadow was thrown from him, disappearing down the hallway, lights flickering after it.

"You guys alright?" Winchester asked she laid the older man on the ground, checking his pulse.

"I'm good." Jim said as he went over to Spock, who had stepped clear of Devereaux, looking shaken. "Don't think Spock's doing ok though. He held onto him." He nodded at the unconscious Hunter as he followed Spock as he walked away toward a wall.

She pulled out her phone and sent a text off to the others, while Jim commed Bones, asking for a medical team to be sent down. Winchester stood and headed to Spock, who had gone and sat against a nearby wall, Uhuru next to him, having simply hidden nearby instead of leaving. She was trying to get his attention, but he was simply staring into nothing. Sliding down to sit beside him, she took a moment before holding up her hand, fingers of her right hand splayed.

"Uhuru, may I?" She asked, reaching over to grasp his right arm. Jim watched as his communications officer nodded, hand resting on his leg, the other on his shoulder. Winchester spread Spock's fingers and touched the tips of his with hers. She gasped suddenly, closing her eyes a moment before opening them wide in shock, still gasping like she was choking. Jim was beside her in a moment, wondering if he should separate them.

"Don't!" A voice called out. "Separate them and she'll pass out. Let her pull back." Her brother suddenly arrived on the scene. Kneeling next to them, he took her other hand and joined fingers. "Sam, follow my voice. Follow it back to me." He looked to Uhuru then, nodding at her to do the same to Spock.

Jim kept clear as they spoke, turning from them when the medics arrived. He went to help them with Devereaux, only to find them cover the older Hunter with a sheet once they got him onto the floating biobed.

"He's dead?" He asked.

"From what we can tell, has been for at least a day." The lead nurse said, confusion in his voice as to how he had been walking around. Winchester appeared a few moments later, still pale, eyes slightly glazed over; but on her feet.

"I'm sorry." The medic said as he passed the siblings, pausing a moment.

Winchester had returned to herself by then, and Spock seemed more alert. She looked at the cart for barely a moment before motioning for it to be taken away, her face showing no sign of emotion, except for the slight clenching of her jaw.

Jim couldn't understand how she could be so cold. The man was older than her, so chances were, she had known him her whole life. She had mentioned that he had done the preservation spell on the journals, so he was obviously the best at it. They were a small group with in the ship, and losing one Hunter had to mean huge repercussions for the rest. "It's just murdered one of your own people, and it doesn't bother you?" he belated realised he had said something similar to Spock after the destruction of Vulcan to compromise him. He almost didn't notice the fact that the siblings were still touching fingers, if Winchester hadn't taken a step away from her brother. He felt Scotty's hand on his arm in warning.

She had stepped close to him, her eyes hard in anger, yet her voice remained steady. "It bothers me more than you could possible know. But there's nothing that can bring him back, This thing has just made a big mistake, attacking one of us. Now there is absolutely _nothing_ that will stop us from destroying it." She walked away after that. "The others found the Ensign. And a message." She tossed back over she shoulder as she left, Keenser alongside her and her brother.

Jim noticed that she was still touching fingers with the younger man. Wondering at that, and at the sadness in her voice. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to answer the first, he knew the reason for the second; the Ensign was dead.

"Spock, are you ok?" His friend hadn't spoken a word since grabbing a hold of the Hunter. And if he was dead, that might explain why he was so out of it. He was feeling the emotions of the ghost alone.

"He's pretty shaken up, Kirk." Uhuru said. "I'm going to try and get him to his quarters."

Jim nodded and motioned for one of the medics that had stayed behind, to help her. Once they left the area, he followed the retreating footsteps of the siblings.

He arrived just as they were taking the body away. From the blood that was left on the floor, it had been a vicious attack. He watched as Winchester spoke to the other Hunters, no doubt telling them of what had happened to Devereaux. He saw shock, sorrow, anger and calmness in the faces of the others, which was more than what their leader was showing. They all turned as one to what had been written on the wall; and from the colour, it was in blood.

 _Did you miss me, Boss?_

* * *

A/N: So, any guesses as to who they're after?


	9. Meet ?

A/N: Hi all, sorry for not posting anything in a while. I've been busy getting everything ready for my trip to Canada, I am currently in Vancouver, and haven' had a moment to post. There are another three after this one. Enjoy!

* * *

After reading the wall, Jim had been sick, and he wasn't the only one. Winchester had sent all those who had been there to their quarters to rest. They weren't to be on duty until the next morning. Instructing the rest of the Enterprise people to do the same, she had said she would contact him later for a meeting.

It was after dinner that night that Winchester called him to the office she had commandeered. When he arrived, Spock, Scotty, Bones and the other lead Hunters were there. He was surprised at the Doctor being there, but didn't mention anything about it. Whatever was going on, Bones still wasn't talking to Winchester.

"What have you found out, Dr?" She started with, taking a seat and bringing up a PADD.

Jim heard the hurt in his voice as he spoke, and he again wondered at Spock's cryptic words at lunch. He went on to describe the wounds inflicted on the Ensign, and Jim again felt green. Spock was also having a hard time coping, while Scotty had lost his fight. He had ducked to the attached bathroom and he heard water splashing for several minutes.

"And I've managed to figure out who it is we're dealing with." She said once Scotty returned, pass a PADD around. It showed old newspaper clippings, the dates from the later part of the 1800s. She explained what had been happening, and the time period.

"Say hello, to Jack the Ripper."

Everyone was silent for a moment as they read it when it reached them. "And he was never caught?" Jim asked once he had read over everything that had been written and passed it on to Spock on his left.

"Not for any of this. There were a lot of theories. One was he had been caught and sent to Australia as a convict, another that he had been caught and killed for another crime. Some were that he was a butcher by trade, others, training to be a doctor. Many agreed that he didn't like the type of women he targeted. Which explains why he didn't attack Uhuru, but went for the woman behind her."

Jim was confused, and it seemed so was Spock. "Explain."

"Uhuru has been with you, Commander for years. Swells, the Lt from the mess, the others; they have had many partners. Spock picked that up from him when they fought, but because of the overwhelming emotions, he wasn't able to pick the emotions and memories apart. I've done it before."

"I help to drown out and dilute the emotions, hence why our fingers were touching. She started to sort through things the moment she separated from the Commander." Campbell said suddenly, "I noticed you watching, Captain." Jim nodded at the explanation; he had guessed that the calming factor had not been the only reason. The brother's answer made sense. Spock wasn't expecting nor had the ability to handle the emotions that he would have picked up. It also explained why she seemed so indifferent toward what had happened after, she was struggling to focus on going through everything.

"Can you explain how it was moving Devereaux when autopsy revealed that he had been dead for a day?" He asked as something occurred to him.

"Like I said, meatsuit." She sighed then and ducked her head, wrapping her hands behind. "Max, … uhhh," she breathed out loudly, then in and looked up. Jim could see the pain in her green eyes, mixed with a helping of sadness and regret. "I grew up with Max teaching me as much Dad did. I asked him to come on board _this_ ship, because he had done nothing but talk about it since it was commissioned." She closed her eyes again, and tears slipped out from under her lashes. He saw Bones go to reach for her, but she opened her eyes before he could. She stood when she saw how close he was.

"Max was our best shooter and second only to me in spell casting, and out of all of us, had the most experience with ghosts." Her voice was back to professionalism, cold sounding, analytical, yet heaped with praise and admiration. "He would have been the biggest threat to it, after me."

"How did it kill him?" Scotty asked.

"Autopsy showed massive heart failure." Bones answered as he brought up the report for him to look at. Jim looked it over on the PADD as Campbell spoke.

"Sounds about right. When you get possessed, it's a massive strain on your body. You fight back, more strain. Max must have fought with everything he had when it jumped him, but he couldn't do anything." Dean said.

"I thought you couldn't do anything anyway. At least, that's how I understood it from what you were telling Zinar and Sable." Bones said.

"For normal people yeah. We're hunters, we have ways we've found over the years to fight back. I guess he didn't get the chance to put any into play before he died." She closed her eyes a moment and took a breath before looking to Campbell. "Preparations?" She asked.

"Under way."

"Good. Get some sleep. If he holds the pattern, he'll try and attack again tonight." She tapped the PADD. "If we can prevent him from doing that, we might be able to get the upper hand, force him to do something so we can trap him." Campbell nodded, squeezed her shoulder and headed out. "You heard me gentlemen, bed."

"How can we sleep, knowing that he's going to do this again?" Scotty said, his words and tone echoing Jim's own thoughts.

"Because we've requested all the women on the ship to head to the entertainment hall. We've warded it against ghosts, and have put the same spell on the bridge on all the doors and walls. It can't get in, and if it does, it won't be able to get out. Most of the Hunters have been sleeping today, as he likes to hunt at night, so that's where they'll be." Winchester said, packing up and standing.

Jim knew there was no way in hell he was going to bed, and he could see the same looks of determination on the others. So when Winchester motioned them to leave, they headed as one to the hall on deck 12.

Nothing happened for the rest of the night. Jim and a majority of the men slept in shifts overnight, so when morning came, he'd only had around four solid hours of sleep. He met up with Spock, Scotty, Winchester and Campbell for breakfast the next morning.

"I told you nothing would happen." She said as they ate the next morning. "We had too much warding and vigilance there for him to try anything."

"I know, I just," Jim started but Winchester finished for him.

"You were worried about your crew." She still had that professionalism about her, but it softened a little without Bones around.

Jim nodded and finished his meal. "What are you going to do now?"

"Now that we know who we're dealing with, we can start looking for what could have held it for so long, and gotten past our screening. From all the theories, we can assume that he had a kit of some kind." She finished eating and the siblings stood to clear their plates, several other Hunter's doing the same.

"You are suggesting that this kit is what we could be looking for." Spock said. He seemed to have mostly recovered from his ordeal the day before, and he hoped that it would be over soon.

"Yeah. It'll go a lot easier once we've got the thing trapped, we don't need it to attack whoever finds it." They were walking out the door leading into the room, when she suddenly lashed out at Campbell. She kicked him away from them with a well placed spinning side kick. He stumbled away several feet and came to a stop in a junction.

"Of course, we could just wait for it to come to us." Her voice was suddenly like ice, her posture ridged, fists clenched.

"'Ello, Boss." Campbell said, only it wasn't his normal voice. "Did you like me work?" It sounded British, but different, old. The tone was condescending, yet filled with confidence and pride; as though he knew she wouldn't like it, but didn't care and was proud of what he had done. {If you've seen 101 Dalmatians, the animation, it's like the voice of Cruella's short henchman.}

"Leave him." She said, and Jim could barely hear the anguish within, covered by the anger.

"Don't think so, love. I'm liking this body." He shrugged the shoulders and ricked his head side to side. "Yeah, might stay in it a while."

Jim thought she had lost it as a smile suddenly appeared on Winchester's face. "You can't leave, can you." A statement.

"Not about wanting to leave, Love. This body's strong, good looking." His hurried words were cut off as she grabbed his wrist and squeezed.

"Obfirmo intus." She cried suddenly, before stepping back. "Now, you really can't leave."

"You bitch!" Ripper cried after a moment. "What did you do?"

"A little known secret." She lifted her shirt, showing a glowing tattoo of a circle with a line through one side of it sitting on her hip. "A few modifications, and voila, a perfect way to trap something inside you. Dean was fighting to keep you inside of him, that's why you didn't eat anything. Dean always loves his food, knew something was off. We all have an activation phrase, so long as someone says it while touching the tattoo, whatever is inside, stays inside. It also has the added bonus of alerting the others." She took a few more steps backwards, tapping the tattoo.

"Ring him." Winchester said, standing clear as several Hunters pulled pouches from their backpacks and began pouring salt from them, encircling the young man.

Jim couldn't believe what he was seeing. Winchester simply stood as her brother was trapped within a twelve foot circle of white. "Winchester, Sam, it's your brother." He said, grabbing her arm and turning her toward him. Her lack of emotions was starting to worry him.

"He's nothing but a meatsuit right now." Turning from Jim, she looked back to Ripper. "You jumped him either to get close to me, or because he found it. I'm betting on the latter." She turned away from him and headed out, calling out instructions to the other Hunters.

"Wake the others, I want to know where he's been the last 24 hours and who he spoke with. He found something, and I want to know what."

* * *

A/N: Anyone see that coming?! So Jack the Ripper is the ghost I wanted them to chase from the moment this story popped into my head. That and Sam being Vulcan. I also wanted to write about her being Vulcan before this, so as to have her be able to do the things she has been. There's another two stories to go, one of which will include the Winchester brothers. Gotta love time travel.

A/N2: Obfirmo intus is Latin for 'trap within', I think. I've lost my direct translation when I wrote it.


	10. Calming abilities

A/N: Sorry! It seems I missed posting this chapter, which means that the one I did post, may not have made sense. Thanks to angle897 for pointing out that I had updated the same chapter twice.

A/N: Enjoy.

* * *

Jim, Spock and Scotty watched dumbstruck as she left her brother behind. A moment later they followed, only to lose sight of her. They stood looking at each other, Jim about to ask the bridge to locate her bio-signature, when a thud reverberated throughout the hallway. They followed the sound; as a scream, so loud that they had to cover their ears, shattered the silence of the corridor.

They turned a corner and another scream ripped through the air, along with several thuds. There, he saw Winchester turn her back to the wall and slide to the floor, tears running down her face. She drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them and rocked; all the while, a horrified, anguished, keening cry issued from her mouth. Looking at the others, he realised that everything that had been happening the last few days, especially what had just happened outside the mess hall, was all a front. The wall above her was dented (no mean feat), and Jim could see that she had busted her knuckles open, green-brown blood running from the wounds.

"She told me of the idea to make it go for her brother by distancing herself from all of us. I did not think it would have this much of an effect on her." Spock said suddenly, his voice soft, concerned.

"Really, Spock. It's her brother, not to mention that her dad was killed the same way from what I've heard." Scotty said, about to walk over to her and offer support when Jim held him up.

"Hold up, Scotty. I don't think either you or Spock are the best people to talk to her right now."

"How do you figure that, Jim?" The CEO asked. "I'm one of her closest friends."

"And that is the reason. Don't forget she's a touch-telepath, like Spock."

"Which excludes me from helping her."

"Exactly, and Leonard is the last person right now that can help. Having him around will destroy any control she has left. She's barely holding it together as it is."

"You call this 'barely holding it together'? It looks like she's falling apart." Scotty said, looking back at the stricken woman. His Scottish brogue thickened with worry.

"She's not catatonic." He pointed out.

"She is however, staring at nothing, Jim." Spock said.

"So," The Scotsman looked at him for a moment, "You're suggesting you talk to her?"

"I'm the only one who can. Aside from Spock, I'm also the only one left out of all of us, that see and treat her as a member of this crew, not a close friend."

"You cannot initiate a mind meld with her to bring her back, Jim." Spock said suddenly, grasping what he was going to try and do.

"No, but we do have fingers." That said, he headed over to his Navigator.

He sat beside her at first, not touching her. After a moment and no reaction, he started to talk. He told her of his thoughts when he first found out about her; how hurt he had been that his friends had been keeping it from him. He spoke of nothing and everything for half an hour, during which time, her keening stopped. Hearing that, he looked at her. She was looking at him, but not seeing him. He reached out, arm resting on his own knee, fingers splayed. She looked at them a moment, before lifting her hand and placing her fingers on his. What happened next, he would never be able to fully describe.

He was sucked into her mind, at least that's what it felt like. There was blackness, followed by every colour under the sun. There was blinding light followed by darkness, then, he found himself in a grassy area bathed in sunlight. It was surrounded by trees, but he could see dry bare earth behind them. It felt like Iowa where he grew up, but not. He heard laughter, but when he looked, he saw that it was a bird with a large thick beak and creamy wings. He heard the sounds of other birds, but then something else caught his ear. He turned toward the voices, seeing his navigator with a small boy who looked to be around four or five years old. She was younger, at least 20 years. Jim wondered who the boy was, until he remembered that Campbell was only in his twenties. He had forgotten the massive age gap between the two.

"It's just you and me now, baby B." She said, kneeling on the grass in front of him, her hands on his shoulders. In the background, he could see the Impala, dents on the roof and sides, glass missing from the back window and passenger doors. He could feel her emotions bleeding through whatever this was; sadness, horror, fear of leaving Dean alone.

"Daddy?"

A sob threated to break out from her, "Gone. Something got him, and there was nothing I could do."

"You and me, Sis." For a five-year-old, he had remarkable insight. Jim could tell that he was smart enough not to press; clearly able to see the pain his sister was in. And this is way before Spock was able to teach her how to handle the emotions.

Dean held out his hand, fingers splayed; Sam placing her fingers on his, her hand clawed to compensate for the size difference. The pair touched heads then, and Jim could see her calm down.

"He was always able to get me to calm down," a voice suddenly said beside him, making him jump (could he jump in a memory?). He turned and saw her standing beside him, as the navigator he knew. "No matter the situation, he got me to calm down, and focus."

The scene changed, everything blurring as it moved to the side, to them playing in a park, Starfleet HQ in the background.

"I stopped Hunting to raise him, joining Starfleet as it was the best thing to do. It would allow me to keep him close and we'd be comfortable." Younger Sam raced a now eight-year-old Dean across the grass, dashing under trees and around bushes.

"You started again when you realised that the ships were under threat." Jim said. He was starting to understand why she was showing him her memories; so that he would understand how much of an anchor he was for her. Though, how without a meld, he didn't know.

The scene changed again. They were in a living room, surrounded by books, papers, photos, reports. Jim caught the name of one of the ships that had been brought down by the ghosts.

"What are you going to do about it, Sis? The ship was destroyed by a ghost, Sam. You have to tell them." Her brother flipping through a folder as he spoke.

"How? They won't believe me. Not only am I just a cadet, but I have no standing. I have a shaky past that no can find out about, not to mention, I'm half Vulcan." Sam was pacing while Dean sat on a sofa, a table with all the papers in front of him.

He pulled something from under one of them and tossed it in front of her feet, making her stop. "If you had done your research on the higher ups, you would have found him." His voice understanding.

Sam opened the folder, and Jim could make out a photo of a younger Admiral Archer.

"Jonathan?"

"Yeah, seems he joined Starfleet after what happened. If anyone's going to listen, it'll be him."

 _That would explain the hurt I saw when he found out about her being Vulcan. He'd known her all her life, and he didn't know._

Jim could see the cogs turning as she thought about it. "He can get the ball rolling, make sure Hunters get on the ships, are involved in building wards into the hull."

"You're going to have to find Hunters that don't have a criminal record." Dean pointed out as he walked over to her, his fingers finding hers again.

"Or ones that are easy to seal." She was calming down again, Jim could tell as she knelt down until she was the same height as her brother. "You, are the best little brother I could have ever hoped for." She hugged him, and even more tension left her.

The scene slipped past, throwing them into another memory. Jim watched as Sam, looking her current age, walked through a zoo. The animal's cries, growls and squawks calming her somehow.

"They remind me that there are normal animals out there, not the abominations we hunt." Winchester said, hearing his thoughts.

They followed her for a while until a little girl ran into her. Crouching next to the child after she fell, Jim gasped as she recognised her.

"Joanna?" He was about to ask what McCoy's daughter was doing in her memory when she simply nodded back to the scene.

"Hey, you ok?" Sam asked.

Joanna sniffled and looked around. She looked to be around 10, when he had last seen her at Yorktown. "I can't find my Daddy."

"Would you like me to help you?"

"Daddy said I shouldn't talk to strangers." She said as she stood and dusted herself off. She held herself straight and just out of reach, just as Jim had taught her. He smiled, seeing her ready herself for anything.

Sam reached behind her and took out her wallet. She opened it to show her Starfleet ID. "I'm with Starfleet, and my name is Sam."

"My Daddy's a Doctor on the Enterprise!" She said suddenly, and Jim could hear the pride in her voice. "He's the best Doctor in the whole fleet."

"I have no doubt. I'm a navigator in the fleet. Do you know what a navigator does?" Sam asked, holding her hand out to the child. Jim saw that she didn't have her gloves on, and a little wince as the emotions from Joanna hit her. Fear no doubt being one of the strongest, but he suspected the pride she had for her father was overriding it.

"They help the ships find their way."

"That's right, that's why I'm going to help you find your Daddy."

Jim and Winchester followed them, Sam asking her where they were last, until Jim could make out a worried Bones standing on a table, looking over the crowd.

"Daddy!" Joanna let go of Sam's hand and raced over to him. He watched as Bones jumped down and hugged her.

"Jo, what happened? I turned around and you were gone." Jim could hear the worry and relief in his voice as he ran a hand through the chocolate curls.

"I went to see the lions, but they roared and scared a bunch of younger kids. I got caught up helping the teachers round them up and got lost. Sorry Daddy."

"That's ok, Jo. I'm just glad you're safe." He turned then and saw Sam. "Thank you." He said, holding out his hand.

Sam took it a moment later, "No problem."

"Daddy, this is Sam, she's a navigator for Starfleet, that's how she was able to find you."

"Leonard McCoy. Thank you so much. Would you like to join us for lunch? As a thank you. Please."

"I would love to." Sam nodded, and they headed to a nearby food vendor.

"You met him before you were assigned to the ship?" Jim asked, turning to her, as darkness started to fill his vision.

"Until we shook hands, the only person who had that calming quality I felt from him, was Dean."

The scene faded then, and Jim felt himself return to his body. He lifted his head, and looked into Winchester's eyes. He could see that she was more aware then she had been before, seeing him.

"I understand." Was all he said as he stood. And he did. Her reason in pushing McCoy away had been to protect him, as much as herself. The ghost possessing Campbell; it was something Sam could handle as it was something she had assimilated into her life, and Max and her brother likewise. If it had gone after Bones or any of the others on the ship that weren't part of the Hunting life; it would destroy her. Her, for failing to stop it, and whomever it chose would have to live with what it had done while in control (if they survived).

"Jim, are you ok?" Spock asked, reaching him as he swayed.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." He patted the arms away.

"Jim, you've been out of it for over two hours." Scotty said, not letting him go.

That made him look at them. "What?"

"Captain, what happened?"

He realised then that he could hear footsteps coming, and didn't want to discuss what had happened with others, so he patted the hands away again and stepped back to help Winchester to her feet.

"Later, Spock, right now we need to find whatever brought this thing on board." Knowing that her walls were pretty fragile, if not shattered completely at this point, he kept his hands to her shoulders. "But first, a trip to the nearest medbay." He added on, seeing her knuckles. They had healed a little so that they no longer bled; no doubt from a type of healing trance she had somehow done at the same time as not-melding with him.

They arrived at a medbay, and it so happened to be the same one Bones was working in. He was about to turn and find another one, when the Doctor spotted the blood on his shirt.

"What the hell did you do?" The Georgian man roared, taking Winchester by her shoulders and sitting her on the nearest bed, his anger and worry overriding whatever had happened at breakfast the previous morning.

He nodded to the others as Winchester told Bones what had happened, "Go, join the Hunters, let me know what they've found." After the pair left, he turned back to Bones, only to find them in a tight embrace. He blushed at the sight and was about to leave them, when they broke apart.

"I'm sorry for what I said, Leon. I couldn't take the chance that it would go after you. Never ever believe that you are nothing to me. You are everything and so much more."

Jim watched as she initiated a full mindmeld with him, relief showing on his face at whatever she had told him several mornings before was only so the Ripper wouldn't go after him. He watched as he turned the dermal generator on and passed it over her left knuckles, still held in the meld by her right hand. He was glad that Spock's request from before would not need to be addressed.

It was on the third pass; she had broken all the layers until bone showed; that Janet Mills arrived.

"Sam, I think we've found something."


	11. Showdown with a ghost

A/N: Here we go. This is the second last chapter for this story. I have mostly written the next one story, but will wait until I have it all done before posting it. If there is anything from the story that I have failed to explain in the next chapter, let me know and I will do what I can to add it. Enjoy.

* * *

"Sam, I think we've found something." Janet Mills held out the PADD to Sam, who broke the meld to take it, despite the doctor working on her left hand, earning her a growl from him.

"What?" Jim joined her beside the bed and held the PADD so Bones could work on the other hand while the left was bandaged by a nurse. The skin would be fragile for a few hours, and Jim guessed that she wouldn't be resting it anytime soon.

"Seems he left his room early this morning, before meeting you for breakfast." Mills spoke, as Winchester navigated the PADD, Bones forcing her to stop using her hands as she did so he and the nurse could finish.

"Who'd he speak to?"

"Dr M'Combe."

Winchester was off the bed before anyone could stop her; Bones didn't even try when she left, even though he had only partly finished the other hand. "What did he say?"

Mills was walking beside her and talking without missing a beat as though she had expected this to happen. "I haven't spoken to him yet, but Dean went to his room after that, M'Combe didn't accompany him. He joined you for breakfast shortly after."

Jim had been following and spoke up before the Winchester did. "So, what, M'Combe set this thing loose? You think he did it on purpose?" Jim didn't think the man would do such a thing.

Mills held her hands out in peace. "I doubt he even realised it. Dean probably asked him if he could search his room without his presence. We've managed to search most of them, but some of the Doctor's haven't been able to leave their stations when we've been in their areas. Most have refused to allow one of us into their room without them there, mostly because they have confidential files on PADDs scattered around."

"Understandable." Winchester said as they entered a turbolift. The doors closed and she hit the command for medbay five. Jim had seen the location on the PADD before she left the room. It was just him, Mills and Winchester that arrived outside the medbay. Bones had stayed behind to attend to patients.

"Captain, Lt, Ensign what can I do for you all this morning?" The doctor's voice was pleasant as he led them into his office, but Jim could make out a note of annoyance in it, so he called him on it.

"Care to tell me what has annoyed you, Doctor?"

"Annoyed, Captain?"

"Yes, when you greeted the Lt and Ensign just now, I heard it."

"I had her brother (pointing at Winchester) in here this morning asking me if I snuck anything on board that didn't get screened, implying that I avoided protocols." He had crossed his arms then, anger starting to tint his words. "Then he had the nerve to ask if he could search my room without my presence. While I have nothing to hide, I might add Captain, I do have many things within that I need to keep confidential."

"I understand that, and I doubt Campbell was implying such a thing. Whatever brought this, ghost, on board may have been shielded. It could have passed through the screening the Hunters undertake without setting anything off." Jim hoped he had understood everything he had been told the last few days and that he had the gist of it right.

"That's another thing, Captain, how certain are we of all this nonsense?" He set down the PADD he had been holding and stared at Winchester, "I've never heard of anything so ridiculous. Now don't get me wrong, I am aware several people are dead, I've done their autopsies. Several others have been attacked, but I have seen no evidence to suggest anything other than people being affected by a drug. I can think of a number of drugs that can induce the symptoms of amnesia, rage and unconsciousness I've seen."

Jim; and Mills, he noticed; had grabbed Winchester's arms when M'Combe had said that. He kept his voice calm, hoping that she would calm down. She was no longer was trying to step closer to the doctor, but he still kept his grip on her.

"I was not aware that you were so closed minded, Doctor. Might I remind you that we are on a five year mission, and as such, things that we do not understand, let alone are able to comprehend; will happen. I take it you have also taken the liberty of doing a workup of the black substance and of the victim's blood?"

"Yes."

When he didn't elaborate, Jim asked "And? What did you find?"

"No sign of any drugs, only a single cell organism that you can't identify." Winchester said. "Ectoplasm is a part of the make-up of those cells." She had stepped clear of Jim, and he let her say her peace. "We've known this for a long time. The Ghost cells as we call them, attach themselves to ghosts, how and why, we don't know. All we know, is that the angrier and older the ghost, the more likely there is to be ectoplasm. When the ghost is expelled, they are too, again, we don't know why." She tipped her head to the side, a small smile appearing on her face. "You have no explanation as to how they got there, let alone let alone what they do, do you?"

A moment of silence, followed by an almost unheard, "No."

"Thought not." She lent against a biobed and looked at the PADD she still held. "It says here that you had a gift you brought back on board. Devereaux stated in his report to me that you didn't want him to open it. Care to tell me why?"

Jim could tell that she was starting to get irritated with the doctor, who had been involved in one way or another helping to find out what was happening. When he didn't say anything after a few minutes, Jim prompted him.

"Dr?"

"If I wouldn't tell Campbell, why would I tell you?"

"So I take it you didn't give him permission to go to your room?"

"I certainly did not."

"Something made him go there. What did you tell him about the gift?" When he glared at her, again, she actually growled. "Dr, something you told him sent him there. Now my brother is trapped inside his own body while Jack the Ripper is controlling him." Her voice rose, the sentence ending in almost a shriek, and Jim could hear the desperation in it.

"Jack the…" M'Combe' s voice trailed off. "I told him that I collect antique medical tools. The ones I picked up were from Earth, between the late 1800s to the early 1900s. They were delicate, and I didn't want them exposed to the environment any more than they had to be. I opened them in my room in a temperature and climate controlled container a few days ago."

 _Any collector of things from that time would know of him_ , Jim thought.

"The lights flicker? Room go cold?"

"Yeah, I just thought it was one of LtC Scott's patch-up's gone funny."

"No, that was the ghost when you let him out." She dumped the PADD as she left the room, Jim hurrying to keep up. He followed her as she made her way toward the doctor's room, Mills beside her. Jim noticed that M'Combe was following.

"Now, wait a minute, you can't just go charging in there. I've got a lot of confidential information in there!"

"Which should be in the medbays, Dr." Jim said as he turned to face him and hold him back from stopping Winchester. "As I informed everyone several days ago, she and the other Hunters know what is going on and what to do. You not allowing them to search your room is stopping them from doing their job."

They had reached the room then, and Winchester ordered him to open it. When he denied, Jim ordered him, reiterating that she had the authority to give him orders. She and Mills went first, telling him to wait, and Jim watched them clearing the room with their shotguns. He followed and asked what she was clearing it for since Ripper was trapped in the mess hall.

"Some ghosts, especially those that know they are ghosts, like to …" she paused as Jim heard a click. "FREEZE Captain!" She shouted, whirling to face him, hand outstreachd. Jim stopped moving. "Like to leave traps, like the one you just stepped on." She dropped her head and hand, sighing. "There was a reason I asked you to stay outside, Sir."

Jim now felt really sheepish. Bones was always telling him to think and listen before jumping into something. That one day, it would get him killed. He watched as she walked around him, looking at the mat he was standing on.

"What is it?" He asked.

"A pressure switch, I've just got to find where the explosive is." She looked over at Mills and sent her for a kit that was in the back of Baby. After Mills left, taking M'Combe with her, Winchester went back to looking around the room.

"What happens now, Lt?" He asked when she found a box ten minutes later. She set it on a table nearby, seemingly ignoring the plight her CO was in.

"Winchester?"

"Sir, the explosive is a mixture of chemicals and is above your head. While Ripper wouldn't know of them, Dean does, and he is very good at making things go boom. There is nothing I can do until Janet returns with the kit I sent her for that has everything I need to defuse the bomb. It's wireless, sure, but an interruption in the signal could trigger it." She hadn't looked up from her inspection of the box. It was made from wood, which showed how old it was to start with, not to mention expensive. It was plain, and worn smooth from many hands.

"This I believe is what Dean came looking for." She carefully opened it, and Jim winced, fully expecting something to happen. "Captain, I would refrain from moving. Nothing is in here, as it is currently occupying my brother. You moving could set that off." She pulled out an EMF reader and ran it over. It went off, a high ringing-buzz sounding from it. She closed the box, and it went silent. Jim had managed to make out several knives and what looked like a set of clamps.

She murmured something, and symbols lit up in golden light for a moment before fading. Jim recognised a couple of them from the bridge, though they were a little different. "Interesting, the box is warded, like someone in the past knew of the ghost and trapped it within."

"Why is that interesting?" Jim asked, just as Mills walked back in with a bag. He watched as she pulled out a couple of things while Winchester pulled a table under where the bomb was. The pair of them stood on the table and started to pull apart the housing for the bomb.

"Anyone that knows of ghosts, knows how to get rid of them. That Ripper was sealed, tells me that they didn't know who they were dealing with, or had no way of finding out." Winchester said as she stepped off the table. "Captain, very slowly, step off the rug, and back toward the door."

Jim did as he was told, keeping as still as possible. Once outside, he straightened and took a deep breath. Letting it out in relief, he turned toward Winchester as she left the room, carrying her gun in one hand, the wooden box in the other.

"What now?" He asked, falling into step with her.

"Janet will finish defusing the bomb,…"

"I thought you did?"

"I took care of disarming the pressure switch, the bomb is still live." She looked at him and Jim realised that she had done so to get him out as soon as possible. He nodded his thanks as they entered a turbolift, the Lt texting someone on her cell phone. He noticed that they were heading back to the mess-hall from that morning.

"Are you hoping to trap it again in there?" He asked, pointing to the case.

She put the cell away before answering him. "No, I'm hoping to destroy it."

Jim shuddered at the tone he heard in her voice. It was like ice was dripping from every word, as though she fully expected her brother to not survive what was coming. She told him what she wanted him to do once they entered the room, and stressed that he do nothing else. They entered the room to see Campbell still standing, arms crossed, within the circle of salt and iron filings. Several Hunters were spaced around the room, all pointing shotguns at him, more entering the room until all 26 were present.

"Dear sister, you left me all alone here. I've missed you."

"You have one chance to leave him." She said, keeping the box hidden behind Jim. He walked in front of her slightly as she laid it on a table. He heard the wooden lid creak open, but given the distance, and his voice as he continued; Jim doubted that Ripper did.

"Like I said, I like this body. And you've already locked me in here, so it's partly your fault that I can't leave." Campbell spread his arms in a nothing-I-can-do gesture as he said that.

Winchester said something and her brother's wrist, where the binding spell was, glowed for a moment before fading back to a dull black. "I've just broken the binding spell. Now leave."

"You know, your brother believes you sat back and did nothing as you watched that ghost kill your father." Ripper said, clearly trying to provoke her.

"It wasn't a ghost that killed our father," she suddenly stepped clear of Jim, cocked and raised her rifle, "I did."

BANG!

Smoke filled the hall, making it hard to see; the smell of burnt metal hung in the air before the air system cleared it. He was getting over the fact he had just seen Winchester shoot her brother as he watched Campbell fall. The ghost, while free of his body, was still trapped within the salt circle. Winchester dived back to the box behind him. He turned in time to see her pour salt into it, along with a liquid of some sort before tossing in a small silver box with a flame coming out of it. Fire quickly engulfed the box.

"NOOOO!" Ripper screamed, before he burned like his tool kit; flames starting at his legs before racing up and covering the rest of him as he moved toward her. He exploded as the fire covered his head, causing every light to flicker. Silence reigned for several moments after light returned to the room. It was shattered by a cry.

"DEAN!" Winchester raced to her brother, sliding through the salt ring on her knees, stopping beside him. Jim called out for medics, knowing that Bones had stationed some here. He stayed back and watched as the Hunter struggled to wake her brother.

"Dean?!" She was shaking him slightly, his face pale; Jim was worried that he was dead like Devereaux. "Dean, please? Wake up!" Her voice went quiet before rising to a shout at the last two words. Her bare hand was resting on his Psi points, and for her to be begging him to wake up, he was deeply unconscious. He heard a low moan as the medics went to pass him. He held out a hand to stop them, giving the two siblings a moment.

"Next time you have one of these hair-brained, cockamamie, outlandish schemes, leave me out of it." He barely heard it, but Jim sighed in relief at hearing those words. Winchester was too, as she hugged him tightly, laughing.

"No guarantees, you are a Winchester." She said as she sat back and allowed the medical staff to look him over.

Jim smiled and once he got a nod from the attending doctor that he was going to be fine, he headed to the bridge. The crew needed to know that everything was over, and they could get back to what was considered normal for this particular Starfleet ship.

* * *

A/N: YEAH! Bye bye Ripper! I hope you enjoyed this story. I have an epilogue of sorts, from Scotty's view, explaining a few things that I realised had cropped up. If there is anything I've missed, let me know and I'll try to rectify it.


	12. Answers

A/N: So here is the last chapter. I have half written the third story in this series, with at least one more, unless another idea crops into my head. Enjoy!

I am So Sorry for not getting back to this story. I fixed the mixup of the last two chapters after it got pointed out to me, thank you to those that did.

* * *

It was a couple of days after the showdown with Jack the Ripper, that Scotty found himself and Keenser being invited to breakfast with Jim, Spock, Leon, Sam and Dean. While most of the action had been happening without him, he had had several Hunters with him in engineering keeping him up to date. He knew that the others and himself had a few questions and he was hoping that they would get them answered that morning. He entered the Hunters office and saw that it had been cleared up. The table that had been covered with jars, books and weaponry had been cleared and was now covered with food.

Keenser, it turned out, was an expert in Hunting lore on his own world, and had known of Sam and the others when he had seen the warding around the engineering area; his eyes enabling him to see different coloured wavelengths. He had been to the office several times and had explained this to him when they had received the invitation. After getting over that shock, he had bugged the Roylan with questions until the wee man had hit him over the head with a wrench and signed him to shut up.

The food was real, not rehydrated, if the smell was anything to go by. Wondering where it had come from, he joined the others. Jim, Spock and Dean were there already, and he asked where Sam and Leon were.

"If the last couple of days are anything to go by, his room." Dean said, grabbing a dish of fruit salad and putting some in a bowl. The others must have had similar looks on their faces to his own if Dean's next words were anything to go by. "What? Make-up sex is the best." He shrugged his shoulders and continued to fill his bowl. He seemingly had no problem of his sister being with the doctor.

"She locks down her emotions differently to others. Because she missed out on learning how to control them the Vulcan way, she taught herself another. The journals, as you've discovered, Commander, hold incredible amounts of emotions. She runs her hands over those that hold the most to override her own. Knowing that they are not hers, she can concentrate on what needs to be done." He stopped a moment and took a breath.

"Spock probably knows what she said to him that second morning, but it did hurt him, a hell of a lot, despite knowing she was distancing herself from him. Even after the mindmeld in the medbay, he was still hurting. The other is the closest thing either of them have had in terms of a stable relationship for a long time. And I think it's the first one Sam's had since Dad..."

Scotty saw him look at Jim, who nodded. Jim knew then, that their dad had been killed when he was a kid. Sam had raised him on her own, while working for Starfleet. Just as he was about to ask something, the door opened.

Sam and Leon looked like they had just come from a shower, hair still damp, his sticking up all over the place; and neither cared. They held hands and simply took a seat each, as though nothing was out of the ordinary. He couldn't remember the last time Leon had looked so relaxed, his current hair style and smile making him look several years younger.

"Winchester, Bones, good of you to join us." Jim said, lightening the suddenly dark mood with the playfulness in his voice.

"Captain, Commander, Monty, thank you for coming."

"What, no greeting for me? I only had an angry murdering ghost in me you know."

"I didn't invite you, brat. You invited yourself." She swatted him on the back of his head hard enough to make him jerk forward. The silliness worked, breaking the seriousness and prompting them to all attack the food.

It was another hour before Dean turned to his sister. Scotty caught a look of reluctance at destroying the happy atmosphere. You could have heard a pin drop in the silence once he spoke.

"You killed Dad? Ripper made sure I could hear and see everything."

It was a very long moment until Sam spoke, lifting her head from where she had dropped it at his words.

"You know what happens to a person that dies in a sulphur fire?"

"Oh God." Dean dropped his own head at that, Keenser sucking in a breath.

"What?" he asked at the same time as Jim, Spock simply raising an eyebrow.

"You remember what I said about demon possession?"

"Black eyes, flinging people across a room, yeah." Jim said, nodding.

"Sulphur is another sign, the smell, a deposit of it left behind or burned into whatever it touches." Sam said, and the others were beginning to understand.

"You and you father were under the impression you were dealing with one such creature." Spock asked, to which Sam nodded.

"Before we figured out that it wasn't, it entered Dad. We didn't have the marks we do now, so no way of trapping it. Dad vanished for several days, freaking me out. He never did that in the middle of a hunt. When he showed up, he was covered in scars and blood, enough to make me think he was dead. I hit him with a demon killing round from a gun that can kill almost anything, but it did nothing." She buried her head in her hands, "It looked at the wound, laughed, said that I'd just killed him and left. He was just alive when I reached him."

"He died in her arms, after managing to tell her enough to find it's bones and torch it." Leon said suddenly, wrapping his arms around her, "He also forgave her." He looked at Dean at that, conveying to the younger man that their father held no resentment toward the end.

Silence filled the office after that, only Sam's quiet sobs broke it.

Sam asked something several minutes later.

"Captain, I know it's not usually allowed," her voice still breaking in sorrow, "but we would like to build a funeral pyre for Max."

"Pyre? As in a fire?" Jim asked, his tone wondering the same thing he was, you don't have fires on spacecraft.

"Yes, it's a Hunter's funeral; salt and burn the bones, to put the spirit to rest."

Jim looked over at Scotty, he nodded, indicating he would look into it. "We'll see what we can do." He told them, "Is that what you did in the mess hall to the box? I didn't think there were any bones in it?"

"There weren't, but his spirit was attached to it, that's why it worked."

Dean joined in then, clearly forgiving his sister, if he had held her responsible in the first place. "The brothers once had to drag a ghost along a road to destroy it, a little hard to burn a road when the bones have long since become a part of it."

"That explains why that worked, but I have a couple of other questions." Jim said.

"Go for it, we'll explain what we can." Sam said after sharing a quick look at her brother.

"Of the brothers, which is your ancestor?"

The siblings shared a look, before turning back to them and shrugging.

"No idea."

"Not a clue."

"What? You don't know?"

"The boys weren't exactly monogamous. They were on the road all the time, and well, men need to let off a certain type of steam every now and again." Sam said, eyeing Jim. Scotty nearly choked on a laugh but managed to turn it into a chough when he realised what she was implying. While he steered clear of the crew on board, Jim was a notorious womaniser on planets. His friend was doing better if she was teasing the captain. "The only reason we know we're related at all is because of the last name. And DNA tests from some of the things in the car. Without knowing who's DNA profile is whose, we don't know. We know that there are programs that can break down what colour hair and eyes they may have had," she held out her hand to Leon, forestalling his response, "But, we kinda like the fact we don't know. Just another mystery of being a Winchester."

"They did document women they stayed with for any length of time, usually after one of them had died for a while. But it was so long ago, and with interfering angels and nasty demons, it's hard to trace back that far. Not to mention I'm pretty sure one of the angles changed a few memories on some of them to keep them safe at the brothers' request." Dean said.

"Wait, 'died for a while'? What in the hell does that mean?" Scotty asked, catching the odd wording.

"Is this what you meant on New Vulcan when you said 'depends on the ancestry' when Dlece said your name had nothing to do with your survival?" Jim said.

"Yes."

The next half an hour was spent with the siblings trading off one another telling them about how the ancestor they had been named for, died and came back. Scotty was shocked at the number of times it had happened; he had a better understanding as to why they didn't know.

"I have read a number of the journals written by the brothers; and the Hunters you have here, some of their names also appear within them." Spock said, a questioning tone in his wording.

"Yeah, a lot of them have taken the names of Hunters that have either saved family in the past, or a Hunter they like. Take Singer, for example. The original was like a father to the brothers after their own died. He had lost his wife to a demon, that was how he got into it."

"That's how one starts in this business usually, you lose someone to something you can't explain and you see it happen. A hunter saves you and explains. Most times, the family think you're crazy and call the cops, hence criminal records; other times, they join the fight. There aren't a lot of people like us that are born into hunting. As far as we know, we're one of only three families that have lasted this long, Fitz and Novak are the other two."

"You mentioned grave robbing and murder before, what did you mean?" Leon asked, making Scotty wonder where he was during that conversation.

"In order to burn the body of a spirit, often you have to dig it up. Most times, you don't have time to rebury the body after, since by then someone will have noticed the nice bonfire you've created." Dean answered.

Sam took up. "Take Singer again. We needed experienced Hunters on board, but there aren't that many that have a clean enough record. I've known him since before I started at Starfleet. He was just a kid in his teens, but he already had a record a mile long. The murders, come about when you kill a shape shifter, werewolf, vampire and such things that were human, or can take on the shape of a human. ME's don't know what to look for or how to explain what they've found, since such things aren't covered in med school. As such, it is recorded as a murder, and if they find evidence of a Hunter and it matches other cases, a Hunter can build up quite the rap sheet pretty quickly."

"So he took another name and started fresh." Jim finished.

"Yes, by using the same program I did to hide. By taking the name of a past well known Hunter, even if they've never met you, others will know who you are. These journals," She said as she waved a hand across the journals behind her, "are Hunter 101, when it comes to new ones starting out. No one else has ever hunted anywhere near as many things as they did, nor come across some of the things they encountered."

They each took a moment to sort things out as they filled a cup of coffee, savouring it.

"We have seen that you have used spells from different planets, is that why you disappeared on Littaner?" Spock asked. Scotty remembered when the ship had gone off when it had lost her biosignature. He had been worried sick until she had called, explaining that she was entering an area that was going to block it and her comm device. He never did get a report on what she found.

"Bimbge mentioned that you showed some of his people something? Something about death rituals?" Jim asked.

"Not quite, I saw some symbols on a wall of their cemetery and they looked a lot like some of ours that trap spirits in objects or places. I approached the nightwatchmen and showed him a couple of similar symbols from Earth. He quickly contacted their version of Hunters and I spoke to them the next day after shielding myself from the ship. Picked up a few things from them in terms of spells, but also salt. It's not mined any more on Earth, and you can only get the replicated stuff which we've found doesn't work as strongly as the natural stuff."

Dean spoke up then, "There aren't a lot of places left that still have active Hunters. Most are scholars, and only do the book work now."

"Yeah, and look how well that worked for Earth." Sam growled. She finished her bowl of fruit and took a drink of coffee to hide her annoyance.

"Why, what happened?" Scotty asked.

"On Earth, there was a society called The Men of Letters. They did a lot of research into the supernatural and left all the grunt work to the Hunters. When the American chapter fell in the 1950s, the British one did nothing to help re-establish them or find out what happened. When the sun was dying suddenly in the 2010s, they came over shortly after to take a hand and try to 'help' the American Hunters." Dean explained.

"Only they made a big mistake; they attacked, kidnapped and tortured Sam. It turned all the American Hunters against them in the end, and they were driven out because they didn't understand how things worked there."

"They tried to do things like they had done them in England for so long." Scotty said. He had a feeling it didn't work out so good. America was and still is a hard place to tame.

"Yeah. They fell only fifty years later. A group of werewolves had managed to escape them centuries before. Their numbers grew until they managed to attack the Bunker they had there, only it wasn't a bunker anymore, just a house. And it fell easily. The Men of Letters had no idea how to handle them, except for in books. Their own Hunters had no natural instincts, they had been honed out with computer tracking and satellite imagery and they had been taught to rely on the information given to them by the Letters people." Sam said. "Also, there were plenty of signs in the papers, only the Hunters no longer looked at them, again relying on the scholars."

"Books are one thing, but it's hands on practical fighting that wins things in this sort of war. That's why we're still going."

"So, England, still werewolf territory?" Jim asked, Scotty remembered it was one of the things that Keenser had told him about.

"No, we found a solution to turning them back, so long as they're less than a hundred years old. The brothers found something once, but as far as we know, it only worked once, on Novak's ancestor. We found a planet that had similar creatures. It was caused by a virus there, and it seemed, on Earth. The ones in Canada, we're negotiating with to try and get them to take the antidote."

They all took several minutes to digest that information. It was a lot, but it also explained a lot of things. Many of his own questions had been answered, and it seemed those of the others as well. Just as he thought there was nothing else for the moment, Leon, it seemed had one more.

"Sam, when Ripper first appeared, you said something about gloves and what had happened last time. What did you mean?"

The siblings were silent for a moment, until Sam spoke. "As you know, I haven't got the walls that Spock does, and when I was younger, I never went anywhere without them on. Dad and I were Hunting a ghost that left ecto. I'd never seen it before, and at the time, didn't have my gloves on as I was nowhere near the area where the victim appeared." She stopped and shuddered.

"She ended up in a coma for a week. It was a few years before I was born." Dean said, allowing her to touch his fingers.

"To someone like me or Spock, it's like blood."

"You picked up emotions from it." Scotty said, remembering what Jim had mentioned over dinner the day before.

"More than that, it's personality took control of me. My body shut down so my brain could fight it. That's how strong it was. Ripper would have been worse, if Spock's reaction was anything to go by, and he had training." Sam continued.

Scotty couldn't imagine what it would have been like for her. Growing up without the knowledge of how to block such things, fearing everything she touched; would have been a nightmare for her.

He was pouring a coffee for them a second time when Jim asked, "What happened that day, with you and me? I saw memories, but we weren't doing a mind-meld. Same with Sable in the medbay. You were able to get information without melding."

Scotty remembered that. While it had been happening, Jim had been completely unresponsive. Spock, because of his touch-telepathy, had been unable to touch them, but when Scotty himself had, neither had responded to his calls, or light shakes. Spock didn't have any idea as to what had happened. The medbay incident, Jim had told them about later.

"Dad only knew where to place the fingers, but he didn't know of how to initiate it, Mom did that. Since I didn't know how to do it, as a kid, the finger-meld I created, worked on a similar level. I can control what I show to another and what I can see from another, if I get them to think about it."

"How is that different from a Mind-meld?" Scotty asked.

"Mind-melds are everything; feelings, thoughts, emotions; all flowing freely from one to another, no holding back, hiding nothing. Finger-melds are controlled by the person doing it. Only something or someone strong can over-ride that control."

"I would like to learn that technique, Lieutenant." Spock asked, to which Sam nodded, a smile breaking out on her face at the thought of teaching the Vulcan something he did not know. Scotty hoped she would tell him of any stuff ups so he could get back at him about it later.

The friends sat for several minutes until Jim was called to the bridge. They broke up and went their separate ways. Scotty headed back to engineering, Keenser at his side. On the way, he asked

"The, pyre, did you do that for those you lost?"

Keenser nodded and signed back {Yes, we would do the same thing. It's a sign of respect to the Hunter, and honour for those who not only attend, but participate.} Reaching their level, Keenser looked back at Scotty {I've found an area they can do it in. It won't damage anything, and we can blow the ashes out into space once it's done.}

Scotty realised that the Hunters had spoken to him, and that asking Jim was just a formality; they would have gone ahead with it regardless of his decision. Nodding, he contacted Jim and informed him of the area Keenser had found. After that, he had contacted Sam, and informed her.

The area was locked down two days later. No one, other than the Hunters were allowed in. Sam told him later that they had replicated logs to burn, the fire lasting several hours before they cleared the room and opened a hatch into space. Scotty could tell that she was still reeling over the loss of a lifelong friend.

They soon settled into a routine again, well as routine as it could get for the Enterprise. The Hunters returned to their usual duties, only having to don the role again once more during the rest of the five-year mission. Scotty, while learning a lot about Hunters and their life from Keenser, was glad he wasn't one. He was also glad that he knew there were people out there taking care of the things that went bump in the night.

* * *

YEAH! Finished. I have still got a bit to write on the next instalment of this series involving Sam and Dean. All the favorites return, and a few new ones appear. Hope you have enjoyed this story and the tale of the Hunters of the Enterprise.


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